Day 3: The Great Wall and Scorpions!

This was the day I accomplished a life Goal!!!

The Great Wall!

But I'll get to that in a moment, our first activity was the Jade factory. Here we saw a person actually molding jade.

In China there are no diamonds, so for weddings and things like that, the girls get jade bracelets to wear for the rest of their lives. They are pretty but expensive and they don't fit very well. Then after a brief show they took us to the show room and wanted us to buy stuff. Well, I didn't get anything but my dad did find a jade chess set.

Okay now for the main event! The great wall:

 We climbed it all the way to the top!!!

 Well, my mom did stop about two towers to the top. Almost there!

 I made it, this the very top of the wall before it turns and goes down the other side of the mountain.

 My sister is the one behind the camera so here is for her :)

It was so fun and smoggy, very smoggy. It was a little of a challenge because most of it was stairs. My sister counted them and there were 1,603 of them that we climbed and then descended. There were only seven of the group of 25 that made it to the top but we were among them! We had to hurry though cause we were given a time limit and so had to rush a bit. My mom would have made too if not for that stinkin' time limit. It was actually really funny seeing others try to climb the wall too, there were girls in high heels and even one girl was hacking up a lung and she was only past the first tower! 

It was such a good and accomplishing experience. I got a shirt that claimed I made it, oh yeah, stylin'.

After the great wall we headed back into town and visited a Chinese Traditional Medicine place. It was enlightening....kinda; we got a free consultation and I was basically told I need to exercise more and stay away from cold drinks and icecream. Forget that!

What was nice was that we got ten minute messages for 5 dollars. Not too bad and after the Great Wall I needed it. I also found my tiger balm there which made me happy :)

Outside the herbal hospital was a market that was selling all kind of deep fried creatures on a stick. 

 

We started with some strawberries cause we knew they were safe. They were so delicious!

They were fresh strawberries dipped in caramelized sugar. So so delicious!!!

Well after seeing how good the strawberries I wanted to try something else and a little enthralled that the scorpions were still alive on those sticks until deep fried. I thought eh, why not. So yeah...

That's right, I ate a scorpion! I don't really remember the flavor but the texture. Super crunchy and then gooey on the inside. As I was putting it in my mouth a local walked by and said not to eat the tail, so thats why I quickly took something out of my mouth. Later the real reason they didn't want my to eat the tail was because it tasted bad not that it was dangerous. Another girl in the group ate all of hers and she was still alive by the end of the tour ;)

After that we went and had Peking Duck, a Beijing specialty. Again a lot of food, but super good:

Yeah, we ate as much as we could.

Fun day, can't wait to see whats in store for us the next day :)

Adventure is out there!!!