Disclaimer: The content in normal font is the original text from the journal I wrote on this trip when I was eleven, and my comments from current 22-year-old me has about younger me’s writing are italicized.
Day 3
For breakfast I had fruit, cornflakes, a croissant, two raisin pastries, a roll, three wontons, bacon, ham, an egg pancake, French toast, pineapple juice, water, and tea. I also had congee, which is like rice cereal. I had drinkable yogurt. What? How? This is a buffet that we went to at the hotel. We took a two hour drive to the Great Wall of China on a bus. I went to the top of one of the watch towers. There are water ditches on the ground and I hurt my ankle on what seemed to be never ending steps up and down. Well I guess I got my workout for today. Ha I still say this. We walked on the wall for about ½ a mile and then took a trail leading to our meeting place where I had a coke. Historical not so fun fact: Many people died while working on the wall, but since they were often extremely far from home and low class, they ended up becoming a part of the wall rather than being sent home to their families. I believe I knew this before going on the trip but it is interesting that I didn’t comment about it in the journal. On our way down, there was a slide that we missed the entrance to. I got upset because I wanted to do it, even though I am strongly afraid of heights. Not letting a fear get in the way of experience…I guess I learned my lesson after England. We found a chair lift that would take us to the slide. There was a line that we saw Lynn and Gary from our tour group, so we invited them to come in line with us. I rode solo, got stuck a few times, screamed, but I had lots of fun. I don’t remember this at all. I think I’m over my jetlag. I am back on the bus on the way to lunch and then to the Temple of Heaven. The bathrooms are weird and the toilets are a hole that is hard to go and make it in. Anyways! It is a skill that I must say I am quite excellent at, if I do say so myself. I do. For lunch I had noodles. Cool. For the last part of our day tour, we saw different temples. We first went to the Oriental Plaza to get an outfit that we didn’t find, and converses that weren’t my size. It sounds like this excursion was extremely successful. My heels were killing me and we bought a caramel macchiato. I still get these about as frequently as I did when I was here. For dinner, I went to a restaurant at the hotel, where I had shrimp wontons, shrimp dumplings, shrimps with pasta and green tea. ALL OF THE SHRIMPIES! After dinner, my aunt and I went to the indoor pool. I played around for a little while, but Aunt Tracy didn’t because she was too tired. I had to wear a swimcap that we bought for 50 yuan, about 3-4 american dollars. Money-making/saving me likes this a lot. After I was done in the pool, I got ready for bed, took a shower and went to bed.
The World Unfiltered 