When in doubt, travel it out.

Today was a fantastic day.

After a long, covid induced, empty period with limited travel, today was a day where I could get out and about.

Travel can free up the mind and broaden your horizon. Today was certainly a testament to that. The horizon was broad.

My mind has been released.

The broad horizon that I took deeply into my very soul today had three stunning visions.

First, we visited a Buddha Temple and then we went to the wild, undeveloped part of China’s Great Wall. We then finished up walking around a pottery factory that provides the replacement slates for any damaged tiles in the Forbidden City.

I purchased five figurines at the pottery factory shop that would look very much in place at the actual Forbidden City. They were a purchase to keep this memory alive.

I never thought in my wildest dreams that this could be a day in my life. These types of places were nothing but a distant fantasy when I was growing up in the housing schemes of inner-city Glasgow.

That is the beauty of travel. You can get to explore the things that have been part of your history, even when they were nothing more than imagery as seen in books and magazines. That is still part of your past.

It is an honour and a privilege to experience something so unique, and this post is just about sharing that experience with you. Please enjoy the few pictures below and understand how stunningly individual China is.

The thing though, the Chinese guide, Tom, that helped with our travel, would have been as equally amazed as I was today if he was to be standing and staring at Edinburgh Castle.

When we stood on the Great Wall of China, Tom told us that he had visited this part of the wall over three hundred times. I used to work in Edinburgh, and I have seen the castle hundreds of times. I know that feeling.

But yet, today, Tom still took pictures of what we were all looking at in awe. He was as excited to be there as we all were.

One man’s Castle is another man’s Great Wall.

It is never wearying to be in the presence of something so breathtaking.

Tomorrow, if I could get back to Scotland and I was walking down Princes Street, and the castle was up there on the famous rock, I would be taking pictures. In awe of the uniqueness of how inspiring Edinburgh Castle is and where it sits regarding the landscape that surrounds it.

I would be excited about being there and as astonished by the ever beautiful castle up in the distance as I was when I first travelled to Edinburgh as a small child.

Everything in life is relative, they say, but spectacular is still spectacular.

Today was spectacular.