After we left Xi'an, we got on the bus to the railway station, and I realized that I'd left all of my food money (about 1500 kuai) in my room in the hotel that we had just checked out of. I felt so stupid, but I'm glad that I remembered because they were able to let me off with the assistant Bethany, to go back to the hotel and try and get my money. So we ran back and asked the ladies to let us in, having already given them our keys, and checked the room. Of course it was still where I left it, but I was truly panicked at this point. Also a rule that's a part of this program, if you ever are late to something and it causes you to miss your travel arrangements, first of all the group will leave without you, and if you don't make it to the place in time, you have to pay for the transportation costs. And sometimes if the assistant Bethany waited for you, or stayed behind for you, you have to pay for her too. So the reason for my panic, was not necessarily that I was afraid to lose the money, but rather, because I didn't want to have to pay for two train tickets to Beijing. We were lucky, not only did we catch the bus (much cheaper than a cab) we didn't miss the train, we got their really early. So everything turned out great!
We got on the train. They are a lot smaller than I imagined. I was on the top bunk of my compartment, which wasn't that awesome, because it was actually the smallest. We all talked and ate dinner (ramen noodles naturally), and then went to bed. When we woke up in the morning we were almost to Beijing, so we got ready, and departed the train when we got there. We took a bus to our hotel and checked in. My roomies and I decided to switch around, since in Xiamen we have 4 person bedrooms, Xi'an we had 2 person bedrooms, so we switched to the person that we hadn't roomed with in Xi'an. I roomed with Tracy and Lesly and Kayli roomed together. We had a lot of fun. After we lugged our stuff to our room we met downstairs to go to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall.
We took a bus to the Ming Tombs, and it was really cold outside! After we got into the Ming Tombs everyone decided to buy these silly panda hats. I didn't get one, but I did buy a hat! It was cold enough to warrant a hat.
The Ming Tombs were pretty cool, especially since we had just finished our history class and therefore knew a lot more about the Ming Dynasty than your average tourist. So it was pretty interesting to see, but it was more of a garden than a tomb so we enjoyed it for the beauty.
When we were done, we took another bus ride to the Great Wall. The bus ride was neat too because we drove through a lot of mountainous areas and we could see the Great Wall in the distance. We got there, and started to walk. For those of you who don't like walking, climbing or strenuous activities, the Great Wall is not for you. After parking the bus, we walked up a long stretch of road (a hill, I say up for a reason) and then we get to the gate. After we got inside we could poke around the souvenir shops or just head straight up the wall. My group decides to go up the wall, so we started climbing the stairs.
After that we drove back to our hotel.
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