[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 15 on calpolymbatrip.com]

Day 15 holds some of the more memorable highlights of the trip. We headed out into the morning mist from our hotel, walking for about fifteen to twenty minutes, and ended up at the gates of the Forbidden City. The several story wall that stood at the entrance to the city, sporting another several story structure on its shoulders, was quite formidable and worth the visit in its own right. After passing through the gates, however, I continued to reach courtyard after courtyard after courtyard of amazing views. The city within Beijing seemed to go on forever, and offered as many nooks and crannies as massive courtyards and buildings.

A moderately long bus ride, segmented by a somewhat surreal stop at a tourist lunch compound in the middle of nowhere, took us to our second highlight, the Juyongguan section of the Great Wall. The trek to the top of the western section (I think it was the western side) was quite a hike — I was very grateful that the weather was far more temperate that day than we had previously experienced. Periodically during the hike up, I would turn around and check my progress, and found myself continually in awe of the structure. It was hard to imagine what life would have been like patrolling any of the sections I had walked up, let alone what it was like to have built the wall in the first place, stone by stone.

TAGS: China | MBA | Cal Poly | Beijing | Forbidden City | Imperial Palace | Tiananmen Square | Great Wall of China

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