The Great Wall of China

After thinking of how to tell you all about my amazing trip to Beijing and trying to decide where to start, it seems easiest to start at the most memorable part of the trip: The Great Wall.  Remember, we were only in Beijing for about 5 days, so The Great Wall was a great day trip that took all day (from about 8 in the morning to 7 at night give or take) on the second day of our adventure.
The Great Wall of China actually refers to a collection of similar fortification structures which stretch all the way from the Pacific ocean in North Korea, across the continent to Beijing, and well into Mongolia and Western China.  Naturally, parts of the wall were built at different time periods than others.  Parts of the wall near Beijing are quite close to the city center and are therefore far more crowded and more tourist oriented.  These sections of the wall have typically been restored over the years and are relatively flat and easy to explore, but may not have the same awesome views or features we experienced (and it is probably more expensive to access those parts of the wall). I don't know the name of the part of the wall we went to, but it was quite far from Beijing by comparison.
My roommate and I had traveled to Beijing together, but we also knew that a group of Canadian teachers were going there as well so we stayed at the same hostel as them and joined them to go to the wall.  We had some far more experienced people (also Canadians by coincidence!) who we met at the hostel who took us to the wall.  They had done this before.
We took a bus that cost about 16 RMB to get on to the outskirts of the city and then got off.  There were a group of Chinese "tourguides" waiting to take people to the wall.  How they knew it was safe/not a scam was over my head, but everyone knew it was safe so we all split about three or four vehicles/drivers.  Each vehicle was basically an old large van.  We were told not to worry about payment until the end of the day when they dropped us off again.  Good to know.  (The service of getting driven to and from the wall only cost each of us about 60 RMB- a great deal since they drove about an hour each way, but keep in mind we were a group of around 15 people).
We finally arrived.  We had to pay a small fee to get through a gate which led us into a small village of some kind.  When you looked around you, you were surrounded by mountain ridges, most of which had the wall visible as a small thin line on the top of it.  We had to hike for about 45 minutes through cornfields and up a hill to get to the wall.  You can see from the first two pictures that the wall grows incredibly steep (sometimes it's just a sheer drop that you need to climb up or down!) which was incredibly terrifying for me.  At this part, I needed my roommate to come and help me climb down it because I became frozen with fear.  I am scared of heights, as you have already deduced.  All the people seen in the photos were Europeans or Canadians we met at the hostel.  They were all such amazing, great people.

After the trek, we wanted to hike back to the place where the vans were waiting from the part of the wall we had walked to.  We did not want to walk all the way back to the beginning when we saw there was a trail leading back to the village from where we were.  The problem was there was an old man blocking our way to the path, demanding 3 RMB from each of us to pass.  We were pretty upset at him since he had no authority to do this and we were pretty tired.  Like he owns the Great Wall of China or something?  We decided to bypass him and his silly ways and go around him and go down anyway but there was about a 8 or 9 foot drop from the actual wall platform to the ground below.  The man was blocking the only way to the ground without a drop.  Luckily, a brave guy from Montreal somehow climbed to the ground below and got each of us to step on his hands and climb down by supporting our weight (he was very very strong).  Thankfully we were able to get down easily and avoid a very long and arduous route back and we shortened our time.  When we were walking back, we saw the following sign that said "this part of the wall is closed to the public"!!!  How crazy!  Here's two guys from Sweden from our group posing in front of it.

At the beginning of the actual wall part of the climb, someone had accidentally let loose some very large and very scary looking bricks that fell.  I had to run and duck and get out of their way as they tumbled down the stairs of the great wall.  Almost gave me a heart attack.  This is the unrestored section of the Great Wall.  You can never be sure if the ground below you is going to crumble at your feet as you go and many parts of the wall is just walking on rubble.
It was terrifying and amazing and thrilling all at the same time.  Afterward, we all went out for a celebratory dinner at a duck restaurant (Beijing is supposedly known for its fine duck dishes) where we feasted on some fine Chinese cuisine.
An amazing day I'll always remember.