Living Life to its Fullest: 10/11/10 – Day 16

Today was truly an amazing day. This morning’s immigration procedures took longer than expected, but we were on our way soon enough. We weren’t able to disembarked the ship this morning around 10:30 in Xingang, China (which is no man’s land…they are actually creating and developing more land by filling in the Ocean). This was the gateway city for Beijing, which was about 2 hours away. We boarded a bus headed toward the China’s Great Wall. We stopped for lunch, and sat a table of 10 that was served lazy susan style using a plate that was no bigger than 5 inches in diameter. I ate little fried morsels of this and that (I’m not really sure what most things were). It was good though, and it was kind of like “combat eating” with the spinning thing on the table. You had to grab stuff quickly, otherwise someone would spin the dish over to their side of the table and it may be empty the next time it comes around. I am proud to say that I did successful complete my meal using chopsticks instead of a fork.

After lunch, we got back on the bus and headed off to the Great Wall. That was a pretty amazing experience. The Wall runs near China’s northern border and is huge! It is quite deteriorated in many places, but the place we went had recently been restored. In fact, my guidebook says it was overly-restored to the point where there is hardly anything authentic left. But, I did none-the-less enjoy being able to grasp its enormity and actually experience it for myself. Maybe someday I’ll come back, and visit a less touristy section of the Wall. I climbed up 500+ steps to tower 3 of the 9 that are available at this particular section. But, we only had an hour, and I didn’t want to be the last one back to the bus. I talked to a couple of guys that went all the way to the 9th tower, and they said it was a bit anticlimactic because the wall just kind-of ended. You see, it is a myth that it is one continuous wall across the whole northern boarder of the country, as well as it being the last man-made structure to be seen from space. However, it is quite large and did at one time extend for over 4000 miles. And, I will admit, it was pretty sweet being able see it, touch it, and climb on it.

After the Wall, we stopped at the Ming Tombs which were less than exciting for me, and then headed back into Beijing for a Traditional Peking Duck dinner. It was served in the same lazy susan style as lunch, and the duck was quite tasty. I guess what makes Peking Duck special is that they fill air between the skin and the meat and then fry, which makes for a thin, tasty, lightly crisp skin. We were shown how to properly eat it: you take a couple pieces of meat, dip them into the sauce, place them in a small pancake, crepe type thing, put a leek in, fold it up like a little burrito, and then take a bite. Mmmm! However, for some reason the word “Aflac” kept going though my head all evening long. I guess the place where we had our Duck is the same restaurant where many famous people eat (such as some of our past presidents and many of the more local political figures).

After dinner, we then checked into our hotel for the evening and will be up bright and early in the morning to tour the city of Beijing before heading back to the ship in the evening. This is a pretty sweet hotel. It overlooks the Beijing Summer 2008 Olympic Games buildings, such as the watercube (where Micheal Phelps won his 8 gold medals) and the bird's nest (where the opening ceremonies and the track and field events were held). It's one of the nicest hotels that I have ever stayed in. Earlier all of the Olympic buildings were lit up really pretty when we arrived, but have since gone dark. I guess the city of Beijing is trying to save on their electricity bill.

Anyway, kind of a crazy thing is that we paid for an Internet connection tonight. I was hoping to be able to update my blog and post on facebook. However, I guess the Chinese government blocks access to such sites by people. Also, our ship's Internet hasn’t been getting reception over the past two days. I guess posting just isn't meant to be for a bit.