Snowy Great Wall

We totally conquered the Great Wall today in the Snow!

When we woke up this morning, we were totally surprised by the snow that had fallen. I think there was a good 10 cm on the streets of Beijing. Yes, while at home everyone is enjoying the sun, I am walking the snowy streets of Beijing at 5.45 a.m. to get to the subwaystation.

Thanks to Wang we could finally go and see the Great Wall today. Last week we also tried, but that didn't work out (although we had a wonderful day as well). Today we actually went, even though there was a lot of snow.
The train schedule on the internet was different from the actual one, so we were there a little bit too early. So of course we went to the McDonalds again for some extra breakfast. We had the train around 9 o'clock and it took us about an hour and a half to get at Badaling, were the most famous part of the Great Wall is.
During the train ride we had a lot of fun. Talking about all kinds of stuff. Like the amount of children you want to have and what their names are going to be. We talked about buying a house and going to Brazil. As you can imagine, time went fast. Inside the train we also had an amazing view of the snowy mountains, snowy treetops and near the end of our journey we already saw a few parts of the wall as well.

Arriving at the Wall we decided to climb up the wall and take the Cable car back.
Climbing the wall was a bigger challenge then I imagined. Mainly, no only because of the snow. It was amazing though. The view was spectacular and this picture is just a little part of that. Somehow a picture is just no good enough to capture the whole thing. It was so amazing. We could not get enough of the view and I made a lot! of pictures of every part of the wall, the snowy view and the people. We had a lot of fun walking up, although it was a little bit scary some times. I only got scared when I heard people 'scream' or slip. One of us actually fell one time and another was a little bit afraid of heights, so she wasn't feeling very comfortable.. Nonetheless we all had a great time and were very proud of ourselves.
We climbed the slippery stairs, which were not that bad. The worst parts are the steep hills without stairs. But we did fine. I thought it was amazing to climb the Great Wall this way.
We definitely want to go back though when there is just sunshine. But probably we will go to another part of the wall.

We had lunch on top of the wall and we even did a little photoshoot. Because yes, we are international supermodels in Beijing. Well, at least it feels that way sometimes. Apperantly it is quite special to see a Western looking person in China, and people love to take pictures with you. While taking a rest a few ladies asked if they could take a picture with us. We said yes, why not, not knowing that they were with quite a big group. But oke, it was fun and I have a few more pictures for my 'pictures of me and Chinese people I don't know'-photoalbum.

After lunch we walked to the cable cars. Although I would have liked to walk up a little bit more. But this was easily taken care of, because Wang thought the cable cars were a little bit expensive. And since he was our personal tourguide and so very sweet to arrange everything for us today (and since I wanted to walk some more on this amazing monument), we decided to walk down together. We had a lot of fun, talking about the differences between Chinese girls and our little group today. Wang told me that he thought we were less demanding. Which I thought was a little bit funny, because we asked a lot and he arranged everything. He told me that he really had a lovely time and that he thinks it is always an adventure to hang out with us, because strange things happen. He even made a comparison with the movie: 'The Hangover' and he was wondering what is going to happen the next time he goes out with us :)

The walk down was very easy and the others were surprised to see us at the KFC, when they were just ordering. We sat there for a while, just to catch our breath I guess.
We took the train back and had dinner in an Italian restaurant, where I had two plates of Spaghetti for not even ?5,-.

Ow, and did you know: Apparently being from the Netherlands (Dutch) and being from Denmark (Danish) is almost the same. Or it is at least easy to mistake those two.

For a nice overview of today time wise, click here and read the one with the wall.