(So I got an Asian style haircut the other week for about $2.30. They gave me two 5-10 minute hairwash headmassages and shaved for me. A pretty sweet deal eh?)
One of my recent adventures in China was hiking with five friends on a sunny afternoon to the top of Jin Yun Mountain where a giant pagoda sits. We left around 4:00pm, took a five minute taxi to the trail head (its amazing how close our campus is to the great outdoors), and began our ascent hoping to make it up and down before dark which would hit at about 6:30pm. The hike itself was great exercise and filled with beautiful scenery along old country roads and narrow dirt paths. We saw waterfalls, bamboo forests, mountainside farms with Chinese people working their land, and many of their barking dogs. The view from the top was also pretty beautiful, though unfortunately we missed the sunset and found ourselves standing on the top resting from the climb in the dark! And of course while I brought my useful headlamp all the way to China, I decided against taking it on the hike. So, our group found ourselves precariously hiking down in rather dark conditions dependent on the backlight’s of our iPods and cell phones, and the bright pictures we could find on our cameras to light our path. To make matters worse, the stone steps, and dirt paths themselves were rather slippery or muddy and there were multiple times where one of us would slip. In fact, one of the girls with us ended up slipping two or three times due to her poor quality shoes acquiring some minor scratches and mud stained pants. Yet in the end, I think while we all agreed that while hiking during the day or at night with a head lamp would have been better, we enjoyed our little escapade. (pictures below)
Another awesome opportunity I had was going to the city of Chengdu this past weekend with a big group of friends for a four day trip. In fact, nearly our entire class of 32 students ended up staying at the same hostel together in the middle of the city, though I kind of explored the city with a smaller group of 7-8. The hostel itself was very accommodating and rather eccentric. The walls were filled with hundreds of quotes, pictures, and artwork from past visitors, and the rooms themselves were well-decorated. Furthermore, the hostel even came outfitted with a western style toilet, hot showers, and two cute kittens that would cuddle up in your arms and refuse to leave!
Apart from our impressive and inexpensive lodging (about $4 a night), the city itself and the surrounding “attractions” were also exciting. Our first night there we enjoyed eating at Peter’s Tex-Mex – a western-style restaurant where many of us ate tasty burritos, enchiladas, cheeseburgers, and mouthwatering chocolate-peanut butter milkshakes or hot fudge sundaes. I enjoyed two separate meals there as well as a third trip for a mid-afternoon snack. We also found a store filled with a plethora of other western food. They had everything from bagels and crème cheese to Chex-Mix. Unfortunately, everything was overpriced even for the States, but I was stoked to find some Nature Valley Granola bars to remind me of home.
However, our primary reason for taking the four hour train ride to Chengdu was to visit the Giant Panda Reserve and stay a night at the top of 10,000 foot E Mei Mountain which is home to the bold scavenger monkeys and arguably the most beautiful sunrise in the world. First of all, seeing the pandas was a pretty neat experience. We went early in the morning when the panda’s were “most active.” Yet pandas are never really very active and we soon learned that as we would stare at one panda for five minutes and watch it barely move! Thankfully some of them were more playful and we saw a group of three of them wrestle for a tire for almost ten minutes. (see pictures below)
Finally, probably the most exciting part of our trip was our adventure on E Mei Mountain. Though getting there was rather tedious. In order to get to the mountain itself, we had to take a fifteen minute bus ride across town in order to get to the bus station, and then a three hour bus ride from Chengdu to the bus station near the base of the mountain. Then from there we had to take a taxi ride to another bus station and then a bus that took two hours to drive us up the mountain. Once we were dropped off at the end of the driven road, we realized that we were still a two hour hike away from the peak and at that time it was already dark outside. And, while all common sense said that we should have just stayed at the hotel that was available to us at that elevation, my friends and I refused to settle for staying any lower than the peak of the mountain. So, we paid the $2.50 it took to rent large black and red down jackets for a day, bought some water and a few cheap flashlights (thankfully I had my headlamp this time!), and we made the arduous 2 hour trek in the chilly 35 degree weather to the top.
Once at the top, we stayed in a relatively cheap hostel (about $7/night) and woke up at 6:15AM with high hopes to see the sunrise. But sadly we were fogged in and stood around for an hour and a half freezing our tails off! Nevertheless, the trip wasn’t ruined as we were able to see the Golden Summit Elephant Statue and some crazy wild monkeys on our way back down to the bus. Then of course we had the reverse bus commute back, but this was a good time to take a nap and rest from the hiking.
Alright that’s all I got! Enjoy the pictures below. I’ll probably post once or twice more before I head home in two weeks! I’m looking forward to seeing everybody soon!
Kyle
Tracey terrified by a monkey.
Three rather active pandas battling over a tire.
I'm not exactly sure what was going through my head here...
A semi-blurry picture of Andrew, Tracey, and I on the bus in Chengdu.
A cute kitten we found to play with.
Read the Chinglish carefully. I evidently didn't and look what happened.
Our hostel rooming situation. Just like church camp all over again!
Aboard the 4 hour train ride to Chengdu. Fairly comfortable for only costing $14 round trip.
Bamboo breakfast.
So on our way back from E Mei Mountain we needed to get to the bus station and instead of taking a normal taxi our group of 8 piled in 4 rickshaws and raced to the bus station. Josh and I happened to be losing so Josh jumped out of our and gave us a healthy push. We won!
Our Chinese friend Tracey with David in a bicycle rickshaw.
Feeding those crazy monkeys.
This monkey stole that orange right out of Josh's hand. No fear.
This lazy panda was actually sleeping like this!
People burned candles on top of this elephant statue i guess for good luck?
This statue was literally about 50 feet tall. Unfortunately the fog complicates things...
It was so cold in the hostel we stayed at that we had to wear coats during dinner! Thankfully the electric blankets in the rooms saved us.
This was at the top of the mountain close to campus with the pagoda.
Some bamboo forests and waterfalls.
One of many ferocious barking dogs that we saw on our way up to the pagoda
Some friends that hiked down in the dark with me from the pagoda.
No comments:
Post a Comment