On the 21st March 2016, I was on my first of many ‘Sisters on Tour’ trips with (clue is in the title), my sister.
We were doing a City tour including Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo & Kuala Lumpur.
On this particular day we were visiting one of the great wonders of the world, the Great Wall of China which is indeed great!
But you can imagine my surprise when all of a sudden a group of youngsters came breezing passed me as I’m attempting to climb these huge stairs towards Watch Tower One.
Please note the surprise wasn’t that a group of youngsters breezed passed me, that’s quite believable given the fact I was super unfit, red faced and panting so hard I looked like I was about to have a heart attack!
No no, the surprise was that the main youngster in the middle of the group was Mark Zuckerburg. 😳
Yes THE Mark Zuckerburg, creator of Facebook Mark Zuckerburg.
In my surprise I turned to myself sister and rather loudly shouted, ‘Nat’! (My sisters name is Natalie). ‘It’s Mark Zuckerburg’!
She looked up and shouted back even louder ‘Are you sure, it looks like Chris Martin!’ At which Mark turned to us laughing and I was able to 100% confirm his identity.
Well, my goal that day had been to make it up to Watch Tower One and on seeing Mark & his entourage almost jogging up the stairs I took chase!
All the way up I was thinking, ‘oh my gosh, Mark Zuckerburg’, ‘what am I going to say to him’, (‘how many more steps’), ‘shall I just approach and say hey Mark, thanks for Facebook’ (‘am I going to make it to the top?’) or ‘hey Mark, you’re the source of my business’, (why can’t I breathe anymore) ‘or simply ‘hey buddy nice to meet you’, (I don’t care if it’s the queen of England up there, I can’t go another step!). 🥵
Finally I made it puffing & panting to the top and thankfully MZ was long gone into an area that said ‘no entry’.
I say thankfully as I really did look like I needed an air ambulance which frankly was quite embarrassing, so I sat down for a few minutes to recover and gain my composure.
When I got my breath back I had a little shifty about but all I could see was bushes, no track and nowhere to go! 🧐
I had no idea where they could have gone and presumed that somehow they had a secret invisible Zuckmobile hidden up beyond the Great Wall of china that whisked him away to a secret location.
However to my surprise as I turned to head back down the steps, he reappeared right beside me!
But instead of leaning over to shake his hand and say Hi. I stood, rooted to the spot completely speechless. 😳
I’m not sure if it was the altitude mixed with my still 150bpm heart rate which led to one of the most unlikely scenarios known to man – me speechless, but I couldn’t find a single word.
Instead I lifted my camera and took a quick shot as he walked past.
Then I believe I said something fairly banal to his entourage and then finally fired up my Periscope app to get some video footage!
Please find below a heavily chopped and edited version of what was originally a 30 minute Periscope which was mainly me puffing and panting as I chased Mark down and up the Great Wall of China.
I have cut out the part where I was given CPR (only joking). 😂
Before you go to watch the video though, can I just say, the Great Wall of China with or without Mark Zuckerburg is a site to behold and well worth a visit if you ever get the chance.
One of the highlights is the trip back down, where apparently Mark had gone down about half an hour before us!
