it's a great wall

One of the big highlights of my Asia trip so far has been seeing the Great Wall of China -- twice! It's so great that we couldn't just see it once. Haha.

The first time, we went to Badaling, a super popular and touristy spot. We'd gotten free tickets with our train tickets, so we decided that even though the location was crowded and the day was one of the worst to visit the Great Wall all year (the weekend of China's biggest holiday), we should definitely go. Badaling was beautiful, and the trees were changing colors, and the views of the wall snaking off in every direction were surreal. Plus we got to take a gondola to the top - and once we got there, the crowds weren't nearly as bad as they were on the other side of the hill. Win!

Two days later, we went back - this time to a place called Mutianyu. Even though the smog clouded most of the hills around us (the factories had been turned back on after the holiday), I loved Mutianyu. We hiked the whole day, climbing up and up, sometimes balancing on stairs so steep we compared them to the staircase into Mordor.

The history of the Great Wall is crazy, and our guide Jackie Wan (not to be confused with Jackie Chan, he told us firmly) narrated so much of it while we were stuck in Beijing traffic. Much of its history is tragic - the whole wall was built with slave labor. Some historians suggest that one person died for every foot of wall.

Now I'm in Kathmandu, Nepal, which is also beautiful - the Himalayas are insanely huge and the hills are so green. I've never seen so many terraced rice fields in my life - or eaten so much rice... I'll be here for about three and a half more weeks.