Feb. 28
The last full day spent in Beijing started as a snowy one. My day started when I was fully awake at 3:30am. After a call over FaceTime with Beth, I had some time to do some stretching and listen to some music before getting ready for the day and having breakfast. By the time we headed out for the day's tourism, I was feeling alert and ready to go.
The snow made the morning's visibility fairly low, but it made the drive out to the Ming Tombs a scenic one. The Ming Tombs are the tombs that were built and put into use by the Ming dynasty (in case you didn't get that from the name). Once we finally arrived, I enjoyed the snow-covered architecture of the above-ground structures at the site. The trees were planted in eye-pleasing patterns and the snow made it that much more enjoyable.
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| This was a piece on one of the giant doors underground that separated the tombs. |
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| This stone elephant was one of two chairs for a stone table. |
After all of the sight-seeing here, it was finally time to load up and head to the Great Wall. We had lunch before a bus ride that lasted about an hour to get us to where we would begin our climb of the wall. Approaching it from a distance in the bus was amazing in itself because you could see it climbing up and over the hill tops miles away. But nothing was quite like finally arriving and getting to climb it for myself. As the Great Wall is broken up into different sections, we were climbing to the highest point of just our section of the wall.
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| This stone with engraving was near the base of the wall. |
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| The view from bottom up, just before beginning the ascent. |
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| Rear view from the way up. |
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| It's quite amazing to see it so far off in the distance. |
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| This is a picture from inside one of the many towers. |
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| A bit further up. |
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| You can tell by my attire that it was a bit chilly up there. The wind was especially cold as you fought against it while climbing. |
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| Finally at the eighth tower, the highest of this section of the Great Wall. |
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| The full view from the highest tower. |
As I'm sure you can imagine, I was fairly exhausted after making my way all the way up here and then all the way back down to our bus again. However, the views of the mountains and the wall made it completely worth doing. We went to dinner after this and headed back to the hotel, ready to sleep.
Mar. 1
It was finally time to leave Beijing and head northeast to Fuxin. It was a crisp morning when we left the hotel, but after we had all of the luggage loaded onto the bus with us, we departed on our eight hour bus ride to the city where we'd finally get to settle in for the next several weeks. That afternoon we arrived in Fuxin and eventually met with the principal of the Experimental Middle School. My teaching began just the next day, along with me beginning to familiarize myself with what the Chinese call a "small city." I'm writing this two weeks out from that day, so you know I've been busy! I'll be catching up on my experiences here and finally sharing what I know about the city of Fuxin with all of you. Until then.
