July 18, 2013

Guichi and Huangshan

Today was absolutely phenominal. Someone in the family said that even if all of the other excursions were crappy, today alone would make up for it all. That’s how glorious it was.

Today we were visiting the Yellow mountains of China, and praise the Lord the weather was supposed to cool down because it seemed as if there would be a lot of hiking and stairs involved in our adventure today. In the morning we were docked in the little port of Guichi and would be taking a bus to Huangshan, where the Yellow Mountain is.
Breakfast was as usual and up to par and we boarded the bus with our bellies full and happy at around 7:15am. We had a really cute little tourguide named Jessie who told us that she just found out she was pregnant and that this would probably be her last tour. We needed to get an early start because the bus ride to get there was about 2 hours. But no matter because we got to experience some of the stunningly beautiful and picturesque Chinese countryside. Honestly, there was some images straight out of Mulan, no kidding. For example, I used to imagine parts of China as cute farmers hunched over in the fields picking rice in their authentic hats with beautiful countryside and mountain ranges as a back drop…and that’s exactly what we saw. An interesting little fact is that this is also where they filmed Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Pretty darn cool. On a funnier note, at one point in the trip we saw lots of solar panels on the roves of apartments and Leah exclaimed, “Hah! Look on the roof! Oh never mind, I thought it was Spiderman”.

We also stopped for a bathroom break, or for the happy room as they call it, on the way there and the only reason I mention that is to describe the toilets…holes in the ground. I never mustered up the courage to actually use one but that is one experience that I am not ashamed of leaving untouched. The tour guide handing out napkins as we got off the bus was what sealed the deal for me. Gross.

But anyways, once we arrived at the bottom of the mountain ranges the bus started winding up the mountain roads on the way to the cable car that would take us the rest of the way to the top. It took a good 20 minutes and the scenery was fantastic. We could see the village that we just passed through and many waterfalls. Quite honestly, all of the greenery reminded me of Norway with the single exception that all of the trees were bamboo instead of anything we’d find in the US.

So we arrive at the cable car station and piled off the bus. I just want to take a moment to note a very interesting thing about the Chinese culture. As you hopefully are aware, Chinese have black hair. Well, many people in my family have distinctly blonde hair, and I swear, it attracts the locals attention like none other. Some will ask to take pictures with them and others will just snap the photos without permission. When ever Merry was with me there would always be at least one nice Chinese girl taking pictures of her. One time we were sitting in the club and three of the women bartenders came up and started picking her up and taking pictures with here. The blondes are like celebrities here. Anyways…

A few stairs, an elevator and a security checkpoint later we were cramming into the midsized cable car. This cable car can hold 100 people and takes 12 minutes to go to the top. It’s actually the longest cable car in Asia, which was actually to our benefit considering the breathtaking view as we moved up and up, closer and closer to the top. We were 5000 feet above the earth and awed by the beauty. Me and some of the cute older ladies standing next to me were marveling together at how a cable car like this could even be made and imagining what it would be like to hike the whole way up. Some parts were a bit queasy and it was hot and crowed, but piling off the car and moving into the cool mountain air felt like heaven after a week of hot humid city life. The top of the mountain was incredible and it wasn’t long before we hit the path. It wasn’t a hiking path by any means. It was very tourist friendly, with stone walkways, concrete railing (made to look like tree branches) and even the occasional fish pond. There was even a little souvenir stand on one of the outlook ledges. More important than all of this, though, was the amazing view. Jessie said it was rare for the day to be so clear and sunny…we really were lucky.

The mountains were beyond description. They were green and luscious and filled with bonsai trees and there was a huge valley and a straight drop down from any given part of the trail. We walked along the winding, stair filled path for about a half hour until we reached the hotel where we were going to have lunch. It was a new and very nice hotel, parallel to the Fairmont I’d say. We had a really good, family style lunch of a dozen different Chinese dishes. Orange chicken, rice, an egg dish, steamed cabbage, beef, soup, tea, and yummy pancake things with vanilla icing. It was great.

After lunch and our much anticipated family picture with the mountains in the background, we headed along the same path back to the cable car station. Before going back though, a few of us took an alternate path that continued along the side of the mountain that we hadn’t explored yet. It was amazing. We were walking down steep stairs into tiny crevices between two looming rock walls and through dark drippy tunnels. It was enchanting. Eventually we had to turn back to make it back tot he cable car on time. On the way down, the view was the same but still as shockingly beautiful as ever. From there it was back to the bus. As a side note, this little mountain hike reminded me a lot of the time we went to the top of the Swiss alps in Switzerland in a cable car…it was very much the same.

The bus ride back was about 3 hours since we would be sailing out of a different port than we entered. This port was called Anqing. I spend my time doing Sudoku, texting Lou, sleeping, and playing with Leah. Oh, I would also just like to mention that this was the nicest coach bus that I have ever been on. The seats were all leather and it even smelled new, which made the ride very comfortable.

We got back to the ship around 5 and chilled in our rooms until it was time for dinner. Dinner was delicious and afterwards me José, Will, and David learned to play Chinese checkers. We also met two people our ages, named Laura and Bobby, from Pennsylvania who we played cards with for awhile. They taught us how to play a card game called Presidents while we chatted about the ship and where we were from. Jose was such a character and got along really well with them. He absolutely loves them.
Overall, it was a really good night and i’m glad we got to meet some new people our age.