1. Great wall. Went on our first school excursion to the great wall with SQ and 3 buses full of international students. Koreans, Japanese, Thais, Malaysians, Turks, Americans. The 2 of us were the only Singaporeans around. Went to visit a museum with tombs and olden artifacts, before a 18?-course lunch, looking at the tourist trapping shops and then making our way to climb the wall.

SQ and I decided to claim to climbed 1/3 of the entire wall, but in actual fact we have no idea how long the whole wall is susposed to be. The fact that we took more photos than strides, and more resting on the steps than moving up them, was another point to consider. Even the many old folks around who were climbing the great wall seemed to have so much more motivation.

Bus journey to the Great Wall was 0.0 with the tourguide speaking in incomprehensible English trying to give us a geography lesson, only to be laughed at and told by students in Chinese that they couldn’t understand his English. Bus journey back to school was horrible as there was a big traffic jam. Butts, legs, back, neck cramps that were worse than climbing the wall itself were shared sentiments.