Pain.

After walking down the Fragrant Hills yesterday my legs and butt haven't been this sore since...well...I have no idea. Fragrant Hills is a place where emperors and empresses spent their leisure time since it has a beautiful view of all of Beijing with its surrounding mountains and trees. Though, I bet they had their servants carrying them up the mountain in their own personal carriage. We weren't so lucky. First for the way up, we were warned that hiking up was very difficult and could take up to 2 hours since it's steep and uneven and none of us were sure we could handle that. Then, this shady woman came up to us and said someone could drive us up and after much haggling and confusion, we obliged. And this was probably the worst idea I've had this whole trip. As the only girl, I was covering my face and on the verge of tears as the driver drove on a windy, narrow path up the mountain. Sometimes you couldn't even see the edge of the road. I was seriously praying for my life (Sorry mom and dad, I didn't know it was this dangerous!). While the boys were having fun, I was covering my face and not even able to look out the window as the driver was taking these sharp turns. Then once we made it up, the driver made us follow him to this alley and this is when I almost broke down. I was thinking someone was going to kill me and steal my liver...He made up climb this ladder up a wall and we had no idea what was on the other side. Tears almost came until the guy who went first said the ladder led to where we needed to be. That was by far the sketchiest thing I have ever done. Never again...

But we had a beautiful view of all of Beijing and there were pagodas along the top of the mountain. I was just imagining the emperors and empresses just strolling around and enjoying nature, which is what we did. Then it was time to start hiking down. To those who know me: I'm very out of shape and eating myself into a coma in China has not helped my body. So this morning I woke up in pain and walking around today was NOT fun.

Today I went to the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple. I'm pretty sure my legs were about to fall off, but I knew I wanted to go to these temples. The Temple of Heaven is where the emperors used to go to to pray to the Gods, especially for the harvest. And like everything else the emperors built, it was huge. I got lost many times (my body wanted to kill me), but it was amazing to see again how important details come into play with ancient China. The Temple of Heaven was built in the 1420s and everything was built for peace and harmony for the Heavens. They sacrificed animals and had a huge ceremony. Everything was to please the Gods.

The Lama Temple was spectacular. You could smell the incense from the subway terminal. It was just filled with temple after temple of different gods and deities people could pray for. And they weren't just any old statue, they were huge, detailed and wore silk robes. I've always like the idea of Buddhist thinking with being at peace and harmony (yes I'm sure there is A LOT more to Buddhism...) and these statues represented just that. Unfortunately, my friend and I got there only 45 minutes before it closed, so we weren't able to see everything, but I was already blown away from what I saw.

Tomorrow I'm taking a tour to the Ming Tombs and finally THE GREAT WALL! Very excited to see one of the more famous places in the world/one of the 7 World Wonders (I think?!) Pretty much a once in a lifetime experience, but I'm hoping I'm able to walk without all my pain. Will try and hit the sack early to be ready for a long and eventful day.