We woke up to the sunrise and then cleaned up our area and rolled up our sleeping backs before starting on our six mile hike. This hike was harder than I had imagined. Some of the stairs are so high they reach about my knee and go up for a long ways. Courtney and I timed ourselves coming down from one of the towers and it took us a total of four minutes to come so I don’t know want to remember or think about how long it took us to get up the other side. The hike took us a total of four hours and was very exhausting but rewarding and beautiful. As we started hiking the lack of sleep and the amount of clothes I was wearing started to get to me. I shed my layers and pushed through because it was an amazing experience. Courtney, Hadley and I stuck together and made stops when necessary to breath, take picture, or just enjoy the scenery. We finally were in sights of the river and area where we would be zip lining off the wall. We first crossed a kind of Rope Bridge and then were ready to zipline. Courtney and I decided to go together. We stepped up the woman hooked us to the line and before we knew it we were off heading down over the river. It was a great way to end the tiring four hour hike we just did. When we got to the bottom we waited for Hadley and Austin to come behind us before going to grab some lunch.
We then headed back towards Beijing to see the “Birds Nest” “Water Cube” and the areas of the Olympics. We only had thirty minutes here but it was really cool to look around at the buildings I had just so recently seen on TV. We took pictures and walked around the facility. We also tried to get inside the water cube and look around but couldn’t figure it out in time and had to be back to the bus. Next we went to the silk market, it is a 7 story indoor building with tons and tons of little booths selling things from northfaces, designer bags, converse, vans, suitcases, clothes, and even perfumes. I first knew I wanted to get a silk robe so I headed to level 5 where I looked through a hundred or so robes before deciding and after about 10 minutes of bargaining with her. I think she originally wanted me to be 80$ for each robe and if I remember correctly I talked her down to ten dollars each. Later on as I was shopping around for a few purses a woman stopped me. She too had a silk robe shop and asked me how much I spent I told her and she looked surprised. Apparently I had gotten a really good price and she said she wouldn’t have sold it to me for that cheap. Next I went to go look at shoes naturally, I found something I liked. They were a basic pair of white sandals and the price I insisted upon I think 7$ the woman told me I was crazy and to leave. I went a few booths down where I saw the same sandals again I stuck to my original price and the woman without hesitating said okay.
After about an hour at the market it was time to finally head back to the hotel. We got to the hotel and were all exhausted and in need of food and a shower. Courtney and I quickly showered and were going to meet Tally and some others in the lobby to go out for dinner. We met in the lobby around 8:30 and went to dinner with Tally, Hadley, Austin, Jeff and Jake. After searching for a taxi for about 30 minutes that understood where we wanted to go. We finally hoped in two cabs and got one driver to follow the other so we didn’t get separated. We were dropped off outside a club called Banana we had asked to be taken to , there we found a restaurant close by where we ate sushi, noodles, and teriyaki chicken. It was a really nice dinner and once again we were hidden in a room behind a curtain. After dinner Austin, Courtney and I were so tired we went back to the hotel to go to sleep, while the rest of the group went to club banana.
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