Monday 11th June

Today has been a really busy day! The report cards are due in on Wednesday and tomorrow grades 2-8 start their end of year exams. I had to check that there were enough test papers for each student and photocopy enough answer sheets for each student and then create a marking sheet for each test. I then had to put enough test papers and answer sheets into a basket with pencil and erasers for each grade which in between lessons has taken me all day!
After school I just came home as I was so tired but I did manage to find a trip to do. Yesterday there was a beautiful sunset as we were driving to Raena’s and I said that I would love to go somewhere to see the sunset or sunrise properly. When I got home today I googled places to see the sunset in Beijing and one of the most popular was on the Great wall. One entry in particular said: Quote from: http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/China/Beijing_Shi/Beijing-1024960/Off_the_Beaten_Path-Beijing-Great_Wall-BR-1.html “We hired a driver for about $60 USD, left Beijing at 2:00 AM and arrived at Simatai at 4:30 AM. We jumped the gates with ease (of course, we do not condone this illegal activity), but they do not open until 7 or 8. We reached the summit at around 6:30 AM. The site was absolutely awesome with no tourists and complete silence. Watching the sun rise at Simatai is a religious experience. As a reward for scaling the steep steps, you should ride the cable car afterwards to relish it all. If you are leaving Beijing at that time, however, make sure you have a caffeinated driver that you trust. We were back at our hutong by 1 PM after this impressive experience.”
This got me really excited and I messaged the girls that I thought I had found the perfect trip. The basic plan is that we get our driver, Mr Wang to pick us up at 11pm Friday night and drive the three hours to Jinshaling (110km away) and we can sleep in the car. We will arrive at Jinshaling roughly 2.30am and we can jump the fence pretty easily, it will probably take us about an hour to find somewhere to jump the fence and actually get onto the Great Wall. The view is supposed to be amazing and it is downhill from Jinshaling Great Wall to Simatai Great wall, which is a 10km hike and takes roughly 4 hours (but it will probably take us longer). It sounds like it is pretty steep in parts but by the time we have seen the sunrise it will be light enough for us to safely hike to Simatai. Sunrise is at 3.45am Saturday morning so we should of found a good spot by then to watch it. The good news is that there is also a cable car down when we reach Simatai and we can always ask our driver, Mr Wang to pick us up from there at about 10-11am (giving us 6 hours after the sun has risen to hike the 10km) then sleep the 3hours back in the car. Obviously some sort of picnic will have to be involved and we will have done it before it gets too hot as according to my weather forecast it will only be 19 degrees at 5am Saturday morning. I am so excited about this plan and Amanda and Raena are really excited too. We wanted it to be a special final thing we do together that we will always remember so we decided not to tell Doreenda where she was going as she can’t keep a secret and we felt like if other people found out they would want to come too as a lot of people have been wanting to camp on the Great wall but not gotten around to it yet. All Doreenda knows is that we are leaving at 11pm and she needs a flashlight, she jokes that we are going into the desert to kill her because we won’ tell her anything else!
I was pretty exhausted today and in bed by 7.30pm, i’m hoping I have more energy tomorrow.