2ND WONDER – THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA – CHINA
Read about Julies visit to her second wonder, the Great Wall of China. Julie’s dream is to visit the seven wonders of the world. In 2011 she got to visit her second wonder, the Great Wall of China. Click here to see how she got on.
The day after refereeing a game of touch rugby between the Nude Blacks and Fiji in July 2011, Julie, Ron and her two sons stepped onto a plane to go to China. They began their asain adventure in Hong Kong, where Julie took the opportunity to speak to members of the Hong Kong society for the blind, and visit Disneyland.
They visited Guilin where they climbed to the top of Longsheng, a hill top rice village.
After visiting the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an Julie, Ron and the boys headed to Beijing stepping first onto Tiananmen square, before drving one hour north of Beijing to go onto the Great Wall of China.
This eight metres high, seven metres wide and 10,000 kilometres long structure of the Great Wall was everything Julie had expected. Apart from one thing; the people!
The boys headed off on their own, and agreed to return an hour later at a designated meeting point. After taking Julie’s many publicity photos, Ron decided to take a wander on his own, leaving Julie with their guide. Their guide then chose to leave Julie for the toilet, and she found myself sitting all alone on the Great Wall. Maybe I could give a copy of my book away on the Great Wall she thought. Just as she was fumbling through her back pack to retrieve the book their guide returned. By this time a crowd had gathered around.
“One of the members of the crowd began speaking to our guide.” explains Julie
“They want to know about you” the guide commented. “Where do you come from?”
“How long have you been blind?”
Perfect thought Julie! The ideal opportunity to give her book to someone who is interested. It turned out to be a local family from Beijing who were visiting with their 22 year old son.
As Julie outstretched her arms, she held her book out for one of them to take. It met instantly with another pair of hands, this time the 22 year old son who we learned had recently graduated from Beijing University with a degree in Japanese. At this moment Julie was able to introduce herself using her schoolgirl Japanese, explaining that this is where she had learned the language.
As the book met his hands he exclaimed “I am so lucky!”
They continued chatting, through the guide, and just as Julie was about to leave the young man pointed at Julie’s t-shirt and said “Your t shirt say that blind woman. Should say that great woman!”
To which Julie replied “great woman on Great Wall!” and they all laughed.
If you want to hear this story, and others, at your next conference then text Julie on 021913513 to find out more.