After seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors, we got on a train to take us to Beijing. We noticed on our ticket that it only had that we were in cab 2 so we thought perhaps it just meant that there was no assigned seating. All six of us are running like crazy to get to cab 2 so that we can sit together. Well, when we get there we soon discover that we actually don’t have seats! The other girls kept asking people where our seat was and everyone just kept saying mayo in Chinese, which means we have none. So for the thirteen hours we were planning on getting sleep for, we had to stand. Ha! It was quite the ride let me tell you. We ended up sleeping on the stairwell with A LOT of other Chinese people.
Tour group for the Great Wall
After the treacherous 13 hour train ride, we finally made it
to Beijing!! I was able to see the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square. Seeing the Great Wall of China was astonishing. We went
through a small village about three hours away from Beijing. Why would we spend
three hours to get to the Great Wall? Well, the part of the Great Wall that a
majority of tourists visit has been completely reconstructed only 20 years ago.
We decided we wanted to go to the section of the Great Wall that has not been
reconstructed like the touristy section of the Great Wall. It was incredible to
see how much work these people put into making the Great Wall! They built the wall by bringing bricks up the steep mountain through horses. A little
known fact, when a worker would die while building the Great Wall, the other
workers would put his body in between the bricks to help fill up more space.
Kinda creepy huh? Well the hike to get there was a challenge! It was so steep!
I enjoyed every second of it though I promise you!
I also had the wonderful opportunity to go to the ForbiddenCity and Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City was full of so many people! It
was really neat to see the amount of buildings and startling architecture. I
enjoyed the small figurines carved at the top of the buildings; they symbolized
the status of the building. Usually had a man riding a phoenix at the front
(the symbol for the female) and the dragon at the back (the symbol for the
male). These buildings served as homes for emperors for over 500 years! The Forbidden
City was built in 1406, and there are 980 buildings to see! We were within the
Forbidden City for about three hours, and then…we found Tiananmen Square.
Forbidden Palace
Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the
world! Its known for housing a famous pro-democracy movement, of which I’m sure
you all know plenty about! While on Tiananmen Square we were treated as though
we were celebrities! Every Chinese person at Tiananmen Square wanted pictures
with us, so it took us much longer than we thought it would to get through Tiananmen Square. There was a wonderful feel about Tiananmen Square; I enjoyed walking
the grounds while there! I tried to imagine what it would have been like to be
there on June 4th of 1989. I also enjoyed viewing the statues on the
grounds of brave heroes. I will write next about the Yu Gardens and Shanghai. I
love you and I miss you all terribly! Only 40 more days and I’m home!
-Amber Toy
P.S. To see the rest of my pictures, click here.
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