Reflecting on the first day, I think it is going to be very hard to top. The day started with a decent night of sleep following 3 straight nights of virtually no sleep. I still woke up at around 5:30 am could not fall asleep, but in general, I do not think the jet lag has been that bad. After I got up, we went down to the hotel breakfast. This breakfast was incredible. They had an array of options including American dishes such as white rice, eggs, and waffles, but also a lot of Chinese foods like dragon fruit, curry, fried rice, noodles, and dumplings.
After we finished breakfast we loaded the buses at 8 am and made our way for the Great Wall. The hour and a half bus ride was actually very entertaining as our tour guide “Uncle Joe” told stories about the history of China. He started out by making everyone say a 10-word sentence about Beijing. Then he taught us a ton of interesting tidbits like the actual meaning behind the word kangaroo is “I don’t know” and that most of the trees in China are painted half white to protect against insects.
A side note I have noticed with the trees is that very few of them are naturally grown. Although there are a ton of trees and other vegetation compared to American cities, most of the China trees are planted by the people in specific spots that follow patterns. Other things we saw on our bus ride was a bullet train route under construction for the 2022 Winter Olympics that China is hosting. They are connecting two cities (Beijing and the Hebei province) because sports are split up among these two cities. Right now it takes 3 hours to travel between these cities, but when the train is complete, it will only take an hour.
It took about an hour to get to the Great Wall, but according to Joe, during a big tourist day, it can take up to 6 hours. After we arrived, we took a shuttle halfway up a mountain, and then got out to hike up the rest to the Great Wall. The hike was much more severe and steep then anyone thought and took about 20 minutes. When we finally got to the top I was completely blown away. Considering the fact that this wall was built between the 14th and 17th century, it is crazy to think about how they built such a long and steep wall in such little time. Before actually standing on the wall, I didn’t realize how high up it was in the mountains and how hilly it actually is. Even on the Great Wall, you are constantly going up and down very uneven steps. While up there, I started to appreciate how effective the wall was. Standing on the top of the wall would give the Chinese military a very significant high ground advantage in battle and also would allow them to see invaders like the Mongols coming from miles away. With that being said, I’m sure people have got past the wall just because of how long it is and how many people it would take to defend the entire wall.
After getting a ton of pictures and really appreciating the wall, we made our way down the wall. We took a toboggan down which was extremely fun. It basically is a sled with wheels where you sit at a 90-degree angle with your legs laying out and use a handle to break or accelerate. The thrill of this vehicle reminded me of a roller coaster ride. After we got to the bottom, we went out to lunch where I continued to improve my use of the chopsticks.
Following lunch, we went to the Summer Palace. On the way there we learned all about the Dragon Lady who lived around the 7th, 8th, and 9th emperors of the Chin dynasty. The Summer Palace is home to where she lived. I think the highlight of this visit was 3 things. One, all the Chinese citizens taking pictures and videos of us. Two, walking up to the top of the palace and seeing a large amount of the city of Beijing and the water below us. Three, walking down the longest corridor in the world which was about 0.5 miles. Through this narrow but long corridor, there were beautiful paintings all over the walls.
Finally, when we got back from these two visits, we went to a hot pot restaurant. At the dinner, about 11 plates of all different types of lamb meat were brought to the table, and we dipped this uncooked red meat into a pot of steaming water that had to be over 150 degrees. The meat would be cooked in seconds and we would eat it right from there with our chopsticks. Overall, it was a great day, I am looking forward to our first company visit tomorrow.