Our Li River Cruise

October 01, 2009

Photos from our cruise down the Li River

Li River Cruising

September 30, 2009

29/30 September 2009
Yangshuo

I was very sad to leave the comfort of our luxury suite in the early
morning of the 29. Julie picked us up and drove us to the dock to
board the ship. Our cruise ship was two stories and could probably
hold about 200 people, though it was half full for our trip. I was
looking forward to this cruise down the Li River to see the
spectacular limestone karst mountain scenery that China is so famous
for. The back of the 20Y bill features this landscape.

There was a group of South Americans on the boat who had a Chinese
guide who spoke very good Spanish with not a hint of a Chinese accent.
Her Spanish was so clear that even Scotty could translate parts of her
explanations. We sat opposite three Kiwis who were very nice. One
couple, Pete and Barbara, were very warm and put up with Scotty
showing them the pictures we had taken so far. We all recounted the
funny English translations we have found in China.

We were served a buffet-style lunch on board, which was quite good and
featured both Chinese and Western food. However, in Chinese-style, you
have to eat very quickly because they seemed to put away the food very
quickly. They cooked everything in the back of the boat. We also
witnessed a girl washing her hair in the back of the boat – I guess
there's a lot of water, so why not?

The cruise took about 4 hours cruising down 50 miles of the Li River
from Guilin to Yangshuo. After disembarking we were met by Lemon. We
were a bit surprised by her entrance as we had not been expecting to
be met in Yangshuo. At first I was a little concerned that we might be
being con-ed, but we had made extra arrangements with Julie before we
left Guilin for tickets and a transfer back to Guilin on the 4thso we
decided that it was probably ok Lemon was very excited to meet with us
and was training to be a tour guide, so offered her services for free.

Yangshuo is definitely the backpacker's town. It houses the highest
concentration of white people and English-speaking locals we have come
across. It provides outfitters for lots of outdoors sports, such as
rock climbing, kayaking, bike riding, etc, but still offers a thriving
nightlife. West street (Xi Jie) is a mecca for foreigners with tons of
restaurants offering Western choices and more importantly, English
menus. Plenty of bars as well as the normal souvenir vendors line the
street.

For dinner, I had the Yangzhuo style fried noodles and Scotty had kung
pao chicken. We then headed back to the hotel (the new Lijiang Hotel)
for our ride to the night illumination show called Illuminations.
After being passed off between guides and drivers and much confusion,
we finally made it to the show with tickets in hand (luckily a few
girls in the van spoke some English). The show was amazing and was set
on the Li River with the karst mountains lit up in the background. It
was produced by the same guy who did the opening ceremony for the
Beijing Olympics and portrays a few of the customs of the Zhuang
people, a local ethnic minority. The show features their call and
response singing from groups across the river from each other, much
like the singing of African Americans on old southern plantations.

The next morning we were met by Lemon and took a bike ride through the
countryside to the Water Cave. It is one of many caves in the area but
this is supposedly the longest and completely natural. It was located
near a small village tucked away near one of the mountains. I have
had my fill of limestone caves in the past but this one was different
because you could go swimming in the pools. There were three pools – a
relatively clear, cold water pool, a mud pool, and finally a relaxing
hot water pool. We were led by Mr. Lu, a local villager, who spoke
surprisingly outstanding English. He said he only studied in high
school but continues to learn English as his hobby. We stopped every
few minutes to be shown a stalagmite or stalactite that looked like
something, either a dog drinking beer or Buddha or Santa Claus. It
seems as though the Chinese love finding things in nature that appears
to mimic something familiar. Mr. Lu was an enjoyable guide who didn't
mind taking pictures on our own camera (they had people in the caves
that took pictures for you and would print them out in the cave for a
fee … we ended up copying a few to our camera for a reduced price). He
was also very curious about what lay outside of China and had many
questions for us. At the mud pool we met with three English speaking
Chinese from Tianjin, just north of Beijing, who were more than happy
to dump mud all over our heads. The mud pool was definitely
interesting as you could float easily in it...but the best was the hot
springs.

We then headed back to town and had a late lunch on West Street next
to the local Hostelling International. I had the famous Yangshuo style
fried noodles and Scotty had fried rice with pineapple. We both loved
the noodles but didn't like the rice so much. After a quick shower and
relaxing in the hotel we are now sitting at 7thHeaven Cafe on West
street watching a movie being shown outdoors (The Proposal) and
waiting for our appetite to come back.

-Julia

Guilin and cruises

September 28, 2009

28 September 2009
Shanghai to Guilin

The train ride to Guilin was the scariest ride we have taken so far.
The train cars seemed to have no suspension between them and jolted
very violently before and after stops and at random times during the
trip. We shared the compartment with grandma and later, a younger girl
about our age. I took the top bunk, which made it very terrifying when
the train shook suddenly and I tended to only come down when the train
was stopped. It felt like our car was hitting the car in front of us
and then getting smashed behind by the following car. Amazingly none
of my stuff ever fell out of the shelves nor did I from the bunk.

We pulled into Guilin in a little bit late, ~3pm, and were met by
Julie. She helped us to the Juang Jing Lou Holiday Hotel (?) near the
government center. This hotel Scotty had found and booked on his own
instead of via the travel agency. When we got there we discovered that
we had made the reservation for the wrong day. Fortunately one room
remained, the luxury suite. We booked it for 700Y ($100 US) which is
over a 60% discount from the listed price. It was an extremely nice
room with the living room overlooking the lake and a very nice
bathroom with dual shower heads (Scotty's dream) and a bidet.

After a wonderful shower, we headed out to find dinner. Scotty had a
craving for pizza so we searched for the nearest Pizza Hut online. We
walked along the lake front and then up Zhongshan Lu a major street
about 5 minutes walk from the hotel. We managed to find the Pizza Hut
via the red hat symbol (Pizza Hut has a very long name in Chinese
characters, none of which I can read.) The Pizza Hut is actually a
very nice sit down restaurant, at least the one we went to, offering a
much larger menu than in the US (you can get full dishes here like
stew or fried rice). The pizzas, on the other hand, were much smaller.
We got the largest pizza, supposedly serving 4-5 people, that is a
little smaller than a medium size pizza in the US with about 8 slices.

Then we met with Julie for a night boat tour on the lake. Guilin had
spent a lot of money improving the water way, recreating bridges from
around the world (including the Golden Gate Bridge) and lighting them
up at night. It was a beautiful tour and well worth the 180Y.

Guilin is actually one of my favorite cities. I had heard so much bad
rap about Guilin being a dirty, busy city full of con-artists and
thieves. Though Julie did warn us to watch our bags, I didn't feel
threatened or endangered in any way. It was also one of the first
times we were able to walk down a street unmolested by shopkeepers. It
was rather refreshing. The lake area is very pretty and clean and
reminded us a European city. I can't speak, however, for the rest of
the city since we haven't had the time to do more exploring. At first
glance though, Guilin doesn't seem to be such a terrible place to
visit and I believe it definitely warrants a return.

- Julia

Guilin

September 28, 2009

Our cruise in the city of Guilin

The Venice of the East

September 28, 2009

27 September 2009
Suzhou to Zhouzhuang to Shanghai

We awoke early and had breakfast at the Lidu Hotel. The hotel's
breakfast bar had both Chinese and Western style food available...
from eggs with tomatoes, hash browns, toast, and cereal, to fried
noodles, steamed buns, fried rice, and fruit. The food was very good.

We left the hotel by 7:30 am to head to Zhouzhuang, which is often
called the Venice of the East due to its preserved ancient residential
houses which are nestled along water ways. The drive to Zhouzhuang is
about 1 hour from Suzhou by car. As usual, there was a fee to get
into the ancient part of the town, which was 100 RMB each (about 12
dollars). As we've grown accustomed to finding, the scenic parts of
the ancient town have been converted to restaurants and shops selling
the typical Chinese trinkets. Many of the restaurants had tanks
filled with various types of live aquatic animals that could be chosen
for lunch, including puffer fish, catfish, prawns (ranging in size
from knuckle length to palm length), crabs, and turtles (poor little
turtles...). One restaurant would pull its puffer fish out of the
tank as tourists walked buy and demonstrate them puffing up. The
assortment of aquatic life interested me, and I often stopped to look
at what each restaurant had to offer. The restaurant employees took
this as a sign that I was interested in eating the poor fellows (I
like fish... but I don't like to experiment with fish in strange
dishes.. and I certainly don't want to eat turtle) and would beckon me
in with "have lunchie lunchie." Needless to say, I didn't bite.

Many Chinese gondolas plowed the river carrying tourists on
prearranged routes. As they rowed the tourists down the canals, many
of the gondoliers would sing. The old city is very small and takes
only about 1.5 hours to see... 2.5 if you stop for lunch. In our
case, we ate at the Shenting Restaurant, which is suppose to be
famous. It definitely appeared to be a higher class restaurant than
the others we saw. It was located on the second floor of a building,
and had a more modern and clean (i.e. not dirty) look. The bathrooms
were exceptionally clean, with Western toilets and had hand soap. For
lunch we had duck covered in a sweat sauce (we thought it was chicken
until we tried it)... it was similar to charsiu duck (68 RMB) and
dumplings (4 RMB for each dumpling), and fun (rice).

Around 1:30 pm we left Zhouzhuang via car and headed for Shanghai
(about 1.5 to 2 hours) to catch the train to Guilin (23 hour train
ride). When in Shanghai we passed by the Jinjiang Park Ferris Wheel,
which is 108 meters tall (and while supposedly smaller than the London
Eye, it looked larger). We also learned during our trip to the train
station, that for Chinese citizens to leave the country they have to
give the government a 50,000 yuan deposit (8000 or so dollars)...
crazy.

Scott

Zhouzhuang

September 28, 2009

The Venice of the East

The City of Gardens

September 28, 2009

26 September 2009
Suzhou

We were dropped off at the Huangshan station for the overnight train
to Suzhou (~12 hours.) We shared the compartment with a young Chinese
couple. They got off at Wuxi, about an hour drive from Suzhou. One
thing that is nice about the soft sleepers is that the train
attendants come and let you know a few stops ahead that you will be
exiting and then will make sure that you get off the train. This was
crucial since we had no idea where we were during the ride. I managed
to ask the train attendant about one of the stops we made, but I had
no geographical idea of where we were and how far we had to go (and
neither is my Mandarin good enough to ask and then understand the
reply.)

Emma was our tour guide in Suzhou. She and the driver were waiting for
us and took us to the Lidu Hotel. Along the way she explained that
Suzhou is where people want to live because of it's slow pace of life.
She said people walk slow and talk slow there – though I'm not sure I
agree! However, I wouldn't mind living there. Suzhou is much more of
a city than what we had experienced in the Anhui province but
definitely not as crowded and crazy as Shanghai. Suzhou has hundreds
of gardens due to its high population of rich people in the olden
days. Silk was the main industry of the town.

After taking a quick shower at the hotel, we caught a taxi (10Y base
fare) to Tiger Hill Garden outside the city moat. Emma had told us
there was a festival there, though she either didn't know or couldn't
translate to English the meaning of the festival (from what she told
us, some poet wrote about the festival and now it is a tradition.)
There were live performances (music, dance, acrobatics, etc) and tons
of "small snacks" (as Lily, our tour guide at one of the gardens,
called it) or xiaochi. We enjoyed walking around in the lively
atmosphere. There were also a few interesting vendors there including
a guy that made lollipops made out of elegantly draped spun sugar. He
melted caramel and drizzled thin lines onto a marble slab, making very
intricate designs.

Then we took a bicycle pulled rickshaw (3Y) to what I think was
Lingering Garden (at least that's what I wrote on the paper we showed
the rickshaw guy.) We ended up at a garden that had a slightly
different name but was synonymous to the word "lingering." We walked
around the meandering waterways for a bit then took a taxi, after
being chased around by private car drivers and rickshaw men, to Lion
Forest Garden. This garden is in north Suzhou and is filled with mazes
made from rock pulled from the Tai Lake (it seems as though every
single garden in China has these interesting looking white-washed
stone formations). Legend has it that the former owner got "lost" for
hours with his 20 concubines in the maze. It was actually pretty
confusing and it was fun getting lost in the maze ourselves.

We then headed to the Humble Administrators Garden, which is a short
10 minute walk away. On the way, we tried a lychee like fruit from a
little old lady who wanted 3Y for only 2 of them (!) At (not so)
Humble Administrators Garden (it's the largest in Suzhou), we took a
tour from Lily. Several English speaking tour guides hang out in front
of the garden and are available to give tours for 100Y. We decided to
try it out since the English translations in the gardens are not very
good. It was definitely worth the 100Y as Lily was very nice and
extremely knowledgeable. She explained the significances of the
carvings e.g. the bat murals on the ground were lucky and you were
supposed to walk around them to bring you prosperity. She also knew
the good spots to take pictures and was adept at handling the SLR.

After the garden, Scotty attempted unsuccessfully for 10 minutes to
hail a cab on the street. So we walked a little ways in the direction
of Ren Min Lu, the main drag in town. We were finally able to hail a
cab to our hotel.

After a brief rest, we walked to Guanqian Jie, which is a
"pedestrian-only" walkway (always need to watch for bikes and mopeds!)
filled with stores and restaurants. We ate at Good People Eat's at the
corner of Ren Min Lou and Guanqian Jie – kungpao chicken, the house
fried rice, and fried dumplings. All was very good. Scotty didn't like
the fried dumplings, which had egg yolk and milk inside that made it
taste like French toast. I thought it was very tasty. To order you had
to write what you wanted on a slip of paper and then take it to the
cashier. I was a little nervous that they wouldn't be able to read my
characters, but apparently it was fine. There was slight confusion as
the cashier tried to ask me a few things – in retrospect I think she
was asking about how spicy I wanted the kung pao chicken and then
whether I wanted the coke served cold. After paying and returning to
my seat, our food immediately arrived. It was like an authentic
version of Panda Express.

We walked the 10 minutes back to the Lidu Hotel for a restful night.
This hotel is my favorite so far. Very nice hotel with comfy room
slippers, clean bath, free bottles of water, and internet.

Julia

Suzhou

September 28, 2009

Images of our time in Suzhou

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

September 28, 2009

25 September 2009
Hongcun to Huangshan

Hongcun, as we mentioned earlier, is immortalized in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Many of the scenes from the movie were filmed in the walls of this old style village. The Anhui Province, in which Hongcun is located, is historically known for its scholars, artists, businessmen, and public officials. It use to have a thriving sword export business (as it was the only province sanctioned by the emperor to sell swords), as well a strong business presence in tea, paper scrolls, ink, and ink stone.

Like many tourist attractions in China, it cost money to get in (60 RMB each). We attempted to use our student Ids, but the expiration date on them had expired so the attendant refused to give us the half price, despite our adamant proclamations that they had expired due to the summer term, not because we weren't students.

To enter into the city, you have to walk over this low laying causeway and then walk over this bridge that crosses a large pond. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the main characters can be seen flying over this pond. The pond is full of water lotus, which added a hint of "ancient charm" to the already old looking village. The city was initially designed to look like a buffalo if seen from a hilltop, with its center pond acting as its stomach. Despite having become a large tourist attraction, many residents still live within the ancient village walls, with many hawking the standard Chinese souvenirs from their doors, windows, and stalls. This included intricately etched bamboo wall mats, silk clothing, "UFO" magnets, and other junk (or perhaps someone else's treasure). A couple stalls featured local chefs utilizing a horizontally spinning flat circular stone to create thin waffle/crepe like things from various doughs, including pumpkin and wheat. It was very interesting to watch the process, as the waffle like things look like those multiple colored oversized lollipops in the distribution of their colors. Because the waffles are so thin, they become flaky and interestingly enough, taste like ice cream cones once they are cooked.

Because the city is famed for its beauty, a Chinese art school has set up a satellite campus in the area, and students come in mass to Hongcun to be inspired by its beauty. Everywhere we walked within the city walls, we saw young students either using water colors, chalk, ink, pencil, or paint to capture the ciy's beauty.

Following our short time in Hongcun, we headed to the Huangshan City center, where we planned to spend a few hours before catching the train to Suzhou. The city center has a historic shopping area, which is closed off to cars (but interestingly enough, not mopeds or bicycles... so you have to be on constant vigil so that you aren't run over). With China's 60th anniversary coming up in only a few days, the area was displaying its national pride, with 100s of Chinese flags hanging from the walls of the shops. The architecture was very beautiful, but the tourists wares grew quite old for Julia and I. Each shop hawked the usual Chinese souvenirs, and as Julia and I (1) had no space to carry any souvenirs in our bags, and (2) had no inclination to buy junk we'd have no space for in our tiny apartment, grew tired of the wares and the shopkeepers attempts to drag us into their shop for "lookie lookie." We ended up coasting down the side alleys, where we discovered the real culture of the area. We ran into dozens of mostly older people playing dominoes, children running down the alleys playing, puppies eating charcoal, and of coarse, the prerequisite laundry hanging from every and any corner.

Over the few hours we spent in the Huangshan City Center, we discovered our highest concentration yet of "poop" pants. Chinese citizens, while generally keeping their city clean, seem to have made an exception for their young ones. Many of their children wear pants with a strategically placed hole directly below their bottoms. This "clearance way" allows their children to relieve themselves anytime and anyplace, whether it be a number one or two, without the burden of diapers or having to pull down drawers. Unfortunately, the parents don't tend to carry poopy bags with them to clean up the mess.

Scott

Huangshan City Downtown

September 26, 2009

After our trip to Hongcun, we headed to downtown Huangshan before our trip to the train station for an overnight ride to Suzhou.

The Ancient City of Hongcun

September 26, 2009

Huangshan - Our Attempt to Hike Down

September 26, 2009

24 September 2009

Another early rise today, though a little later than yesterday (4:45 am). We made our way to the Beihai area and then up to Beginning to Believe Peak for a 5:55 am sunrise. The ascent was roughly 20 minutes. We were a little late for the nice viewing areas but we managed to find a ledge at the very top. Again it was too cloudy to really see anything spectacular. So after the clouded sunrise, we headed back to the hotel. Along the way we ran into a group of monkeys hooting and howling. They were very fluffy looking and made funny noises. Arriving back in our room, we had a little breakfast consisting of some chocolate muffins and apples we bought at a shop and leftover potatoes from dinner. We packed up and headed out of the hotel at 8:30am to head down Huangshan via the western stairs.

We wanted to head down the western stairs and so naturally we followed the sign that said Grand Canyon of the West Sea. For whatever reason, I had it in my mind that we would be able to go by the Grand Canyon area before going down. I was a little concerned that it took us away from Brightness Peak, which is the direction the guidebook seemed to point, but thought the trails might merge later on as some tended to do. We locked our "lovers locks" at the West Sea. It is a tourist tradition started about 30 years ago. Married couples will place locks somewhere on the mountain and then throw the keys over the cliff. We were told later by our tour guide that if the couple wants to divorce that they need to find the key at the bottom of the cliff. We didn't throw our keys over (we didn't want to pollute by adding our garbage to the area).

We hiked down spectacular though vertigo-inducing trails winding their way down the Grand Canyon. The only thing that separated us from a vertical plunge all the way to the bottom was a half foot piece of concrete attached to the side of the mountain. There were places that were downright terrifying to go down. After about 3 km of descent we came to the bottom of the Grand Canyon Gorge, however, the trail continuing on to the West Gate was closed for construction. As our only other option was to climb up (i.e. going the opposite of the direction we wanted to go), we were a little concerned. However, the signs did say that if we headed up, we'd still be able to head to the west entrance and so we took the trail back up the mountain. Essentially we came down the mountain only to go back up again. When we hit another fork, we discovered that the way down to the west entrance was another 14.4 km (at this point we had already hiked 6.7 km). We headed down this trail for about 5 minutes but discovered that the trail was very poorly managed and did not look like it had been used in a long time. At this point I wasn't totally sure whether we were on the right face of the mountain and wasn't really willing to risk 14 km to find out.

So we turned back and continued up to the mountain summit to the Heavenly Sea (Tian Hai.) Along the way we kept passing by another girl hiking solo. She did not look like a typical Chinese hiker as she was dressed in shorts, hiking shoes, and had a decent backpack instead of sneakers, jeans, and a laptop bag. We ended up finding out she was from Korea. We also ran into a large group of Swiss who were also trying to get off the mountain. We met up with them as we were heading to the summit and informed them that it was at least a 14km hike down and that we weren't sure that they were actually the western stairs. They decided to turn back as well.

We finally made it to a hotel at the Heavenly Sea and downed two bottles of a Gatorade-like substance and had a bowl of ramen. We were completely exhausted having trekked ~8km up and down mountain ravines only to return to the mountain top 4 hours later. There was no way we were making it down the western stairs in time to make our meeting point with Jack. We were also running on reserve energy and didn't think we could take more up and down climbing. Thus, our next goal was to get to the Yuping Cable Car before it closed at 4:30pm. At the hotel we were informed that it was another 1.5 hour hike to the cable car, which is near the Jade Screen (and the western steps). We trekked up and down for 3.5 km, running into the our Korean friend and the Swiss group.

After 12.7 km of hiking, the glorious sight of the cable car rose in front of us. It was completely worth the 80Y each and was Scotty's favorite part of the day. 8 minutes later we were down the mountain flying over the hundreds of stairs we would have had to climb. At the base we went into the visitors center, which actually had a pretty decent map of the mountain plastered on the wall. This map would have been extremely helpful instead of the crappy tourists maps sold on the mountain. We then were able to see where our original path would have taken us. It would have ended up at the same location but was an extremely roundabout way to go.

The maps on the mountain tended to not have all the locations listed and even if you could find where you wanted to go, it was extremely difficult to orient yourself due to the sparsity of signage on the mountain. Even the small map in our Let's Go Guide did not have a lot of locations making it difficult to find our way around (though we probably should have been able to guide ourselves with the written description of the journey to the west stair.)

Jack picked us up at the bottom after Scotty borrowed a security guard's cell phone. We were then driven ~50 minutes to Hongcun while we had interesting discussions about the autonomous areas of China, ethnic minorities, and Tibet. We checked into the "3 star" Hongcun Hotel (… 3 stars should be taken lightly... more likely a 1 star... but its also the only real hotel in the area.); however, we could care less since it had a warm shower and a bed. We had dinner with Jack at a restaurant down the street. Scotty had a Huangshan beer, which was quite nice. Jack ordered for us – white rice stalk veggie mix, pork and bamboo shoot, and boiled chicken with water chestnut. All was quite good although the chicken was a bit bony for Scotty and I. The waitress was very nice and spoke with us in English with Jack helping to translate every so often. Tomorrow we will tour the ancient city of Hongcun, now immortalized by the images of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

- Julia with Scott's input & edits :)

Huangshan - The Grueling Hike Down The Mountain... Maybe

September 26, 2009

Our not so successful attempt to hike down the mountain...

Sunrise to Sunset

September 23, 2009

Note: Please ignore the next post of sunrise to sunset and just proceed to the pictures below it:

23 September 2009

We woke up this morning a little after 4am to hike up to Brightness Peak for 6 am sunrise. However we chose the wrong path from the hotel and then couldn't figure out the spartan trail map, so we decided to hike up Purple Cloud Peak instead. We made it up in less than 30 minutes and hiked a little off the trail to find a nice eastern facing view. Off in the distance excited Chinese were screaming and shouting. Nearby a woman was singing a Chinese song. We could see swarms of clouds over the first row of mountains but it was by no means the most spectacular sunrise I have ever seen. After a quick jaunt down the mountain, we had a few snacks for breakfast and headed off in the correct direction to Brightness Peak. We wandered around taking a few side trails and tons of photos but eventually made it to the 1860 m summit, rising an estimated 200 m from the Pai Yun Lou hotel. Our time was roughly 2 hours and 45 minutes. There was even a hotel up on the peak and we were thankful we weren't staying there. I'm not sure we would've found it or even made it up there yesterday. We decided this would be a good viewing area for sunset. We grabbed some food at the shop up on the summit and then headed back to our hotel for a nice two hour nap.

We headed up to Brightness Peak one more time for sunset. This time we took 45 minutes to hike the 3km. Without the hordes of people it would probably take 30 minutes. We climbed over a few rocks and found a nice secluded area for sunset. Hiking these peaks for sunrise and sunset is a gamble because you are never sure whether the top will be clouded over. However we were lucky and the clouds cleared at the top and afforded us a view of the famous Huangshan cloud sea below us. We watched as the sea flowed quickly over the crevasses of the lower peaks, like a waterfall, filling in the basin created by the mountain sides. The sun peaked though and lit up the marshmallow dolloped surface in pinks and purples. Unfortunately right at sunset (5:55 pm) the mist overcame and blocked the view.

We had dinner at the Pai Yun Lou Hotel restaurant again. Tonight we had fried potato shreds (I had envisioned hashbrowns but it wasn't quite as fried but still tasty), meat dumplings, and sweet and sour pork. Tomorrow will be another early morning to catch the sunrise at Beihai and then the knee crushing 9km descent down the western stairs.

-Julia

P.S. One little side note. Its about a 2400 foot climb from the base of Mt. Huangshan to our hotel, and from there another 600 feet to Brightness Peak.

Sunrise to Sunset

September 23, 2009

20 September 2009

We rose late this morning as Scotty believed that we were leaving for Huangshan today. We had breakfast and packed lazily. We confused the front desk man when we said we wanted to check out. Luckily he knew enough English to inform us we were booked until tomorrow. After confirming the date on our train ticket, we realized we had another day to enjoy Shanghai.

After dropping our stuff back into the room, we headed for the shopping complex next to the main train station. The main floor was a supermarket with a massage parlor downstairs and a huge camera section upstairs. Scotty's lens had broken and so he was in search of a new one. After attempting to bargain down the price of a replacement lens, the cheapest over 3000Y, one shop said they would fix it for 400Y. While waiting for them to repair the lens, we walked around and Scotty attempted to find a cheap fish eye lens. He bargained them down to roughly US price but ended up not buying. The camera guys didn't seem to be as eager to sell as the other vendors unfortunately.

After a failed attempt to find Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant near the train station, we ate a a Wu Da Nang and had our dumplings (9 Yuan). We then headed to People's Square and Nanjing Road via subway. I love Shanghai's subway system. Very safe and cheap! I wish it went to more places though. Of course the city is expanding their subway system and adding tons of new lines in the future. Additionally, the construction everywhere is a bit maddening. However, the city looks like it will be quite spectacular by the World Expo in 2010. We are definitely here at least a year and a half too early to enjoy the new and improved Shanghai!!

We enjoyed refreshing boba milk tea for only 4Y (less than $1 US!) This was the first time we had found cold ones, which were great after walking around in the heat and humidity. We then toured the Shanghai Planning Exhibition. It consisted of pictures of historic buildings on the second floor followed by the crazy plans they had for the world expo next year. They had all these models of the city that seemed to grow in size as we moved from floor to floor. The last model was huge and took up half the floor. We also watched a planetorium style 3D video rendering of Shanghai post-2010.

After the exhibition it was time for more boba tea and some strange goopy bread-like fried ball (3 Yuan) things that I liked but Scotty didn't. For dinner we headed back to Yang's Fry Dumpling place for a 11Y dinner consisting of more dumplings and a 7Up (I was very excited as I had learned how to say soda - "qishuir" - and was understood by the cashier when I said it!) Scotty got another body massage in preparation for the climb on Tuesday while I headed back to the Zhao An.

-Julia

21 September 2009

Leaving our bags at the hotel concierge desk, we set out to old Shanghai. Since Scotty believed that we were leaving yesterday, his magical power over rain failed and it rained the whole day. We walked around the main shopping area and took in all the vendors offerings. Some shops specialized in handmade stamps (with whatever name or symbol you wanted on it), others were filled only with fancy combs (ranging from 150 to 1000 Yuan - 20 to 120 dollars), Chinese fan shops, pearl jewelry shops (where they would do a love demonstration by cutting open the oyster and showing you the pearls... btw, freshwater oysters can have upwards of 30 pearls). For lunch we wanted to go to the Nanxiang Dumpling restaurant, however, their was a huge line despite the rain. I think Jack cut in line when we ate at the Restaurant last time. So we instead ate at the restaurant directly below the Nanxiang. While the food wasn't as good, it offered great views of the tea house and the ponds. We had dumplings, spring rolls, a soup filled dumpling, and sweet bean cakes (all for about 60 Yuan). Then we ventured off into the side streets where we found the real Shanghai. Live and not so live fish in small tanks ready to be killed and sold, unknown varieties of vegetables/fruits, and pig hearts, feet, and snouts abounded. Scotty took pictures of the veggies at one stall and got laughs from the surrounding vendors for his weird foreign like behavior. He also elicited an angry response from the pig feet/snout lady when he tried photographing her stall.

We returned to get our packs from the hotel and I relaxed in the lobby while Scotty got a hair cut. Well, more like a head shave. Apparently the #3 here shaves a lot closer than in the US. I named it the Buddha head cut. His head was practically shaved bald.

We walked to the train station and were pretty soaked by the time we got there. We had been booked soft sleepers, the ultimate luxury seats on the train, for the overnight train ride to Huangshan (~15 hours.) The China rail system is definitely no Amtrak. The four classes are hard seats and soft seats (cramped compartment with seats that don't recline and filled with cigarette smoke and loud people), hard sleepers (open compartments where you can lie down on a fairly comfy bed but with beds stacked three high and also very smoky and loud), and soft sleepers (enclosed compartments with beds stacked two high, with four beds total per compartment). Scotty almost got locked in the hard seat class when he went exploring. In the soft sleeper class we got a western toilet where the other classes had squatters. Needless to say we enjoyed our soft sleeper especially since it was just the two of us in the cabin.

We watched the scenery flash by from our compartment window until the evening darkness set in. We couldn't figure out how to get food so we had the snacks we had packed from the US. We fell asleep in anticipation of our first hike.

-Julia

9-22-09

Today I woke up to the sun beaming into our train cabin. Again, there was no food service, so Julia and I snacked on US crackers and an apple. We arrived in Huangshan city around 9 am and were met by another tour guide named Jack. Apparently Jack is a very popular English name among tour guides (however, the tour guide also had an unpronounciable Chinese name that we cannot remember). We then started our 45 minute ride to the base of the Huangshan Mountain gates. Along the way we picked up some water for 1.5 yuan each, which is cheap compared to the 10 Yuan you'll pay per bottle on the mountain. Food and water is very expensive on the mountain because everything is hiked up the mountain by porters. We first arrived at a big bus station where the Chinese tourists can take specially authorized taxes or buses to the top (the government of China has limited to the number of vehicles on the main road up to the base of the Huangshan gates due to heavy traffic and accidents). However, because we were foreigners Jack was able to acquire a special permit that let us drive our tour van up to the gates.

We were dropped off at the eastern train (or backside of the mountain), which offer a shorter and easier hike up the mountain. The western trail (or frontside) is suppose to be much longer, very steep at times, grueling, but prettier. We decided to take the easier route up and we arranged for Jack to pick us up from the bottom of the west trail. Apparently, even going down the western trail is difficult and takes about 6 hours. The eastern trail is said to take between 1.5 to 3 hours. There are also two cable cars that go up the mountain for the less adventurous. The student entrance fee to hike the trail was 110 Yuan each. There were many stalls selling water, food, and trinkets along the trail up the mountain. Prices proved to be very expensive, as the water we bought was 8 Yuan each and an apple was 5 yuan. There were very few people hiking up the trail, but we discovered that many Chinese tourists are willing to take the cable car up and then walk down. We even saw one older gentlemen being carried down by porters. The price to take the chair was about 300 Yuan... however, it seemed that there were multiple prices listed on the chair... so I'm not sure if the amount varies depending on where you start. As we climbed up, we ran into numerous porters with chairs waiting anxiously (or sleepily in many cases) for tired tourist to give up and purchase a ride up or down. On our way up, we only saw four people besides us and the porters climbing the stairs. Two of which were businessmen, complete with suits and a briefcase. It was quite funny to see them huffing and puffing their way up the stairs. Julia and I are both out of shape, so the hike up caused us to sweat and huff and puff like mad. We ended up playing leap frog with the businessmen, often passing them, or having them pass us as we took picture breaks. Unfortunately, it was rather cloudy, thus making it difficult to see the rock formations that Huangshan is famous for. Many Chinese paintings depict these famous mountains and their rolling clouds.

While headed up the trail we ran into numerous porters carrying linens for washing, and rice and noodles up the trail. We even ran into packs of 6 porters carrying giant marble blocks (each about 10 feet in length and 10 inches to a side). To coordinate their movements, the porters chanted a tune. Many of the Chinese tourists were quite amazed that two westerns were climbing up the mountain with backpacking backpacks on... with several snapping photos as we walked by.

We finally made it to the top after a lunch break, numerous stops for photo shoots, and 3 hours and 17 minutes. We were very excited to find that we had made it to the top... and then very disappointed when we discovered we had to walk about 3 more kilometers to get to our hotel. Additionally, the signage at the top of the mountain, while very helpful in identifying viewing points, was very poor in regards to finding the hotels. As there were many paths, we constantly were having to ask the porters, or anyone else we saw who looked official, where the Pai Yun Lou Hotel was. We were relieved to eventually find it and excited to take a warm shower and to get out of our drenched hiking clothes. The hotel is listed as a four star hotel and it certainly lived up to its name (and price... 1280 Yuan for a double). The rooms were also very nice, ours having a flat screen tv, complete with satellite TV (which despite its many channels proved useless to us as it only had one channel in English, which repeated the same news stories every 15 minutes). The hotel also had a restaurant, which offered very nice, though expensive food. Our appetites got the best of us, as we ordered way too much. We had sweet and sour pork with pineapple (so yummy!), steamed buns, and mu shu pork (though there was no pancakes to put the food in like in the US), hot tea, and two cokes. While very good, we also paid an extreme sum of 220 Yuan or 30 dollars. Considering we had been eating for about 7 Yuan or 1 dollar each in Shanghai, this was crazy expensive.

Tomorrow we're going to wake up at 4:15 am to catch the 5:55 am sunrise at the top of Brightness Peak...

- Scott

23 September 2009

We woke up this morning a little after 4am to hike up to Brightness Peak for 6 am sunrise. However we chose the wrong path from the hotel and then couldn't figure out the spartan trail map, so we decided to hike up Purple Cloud Peak instead. We made it up in less than 30 minutes and hiked a little off the trail to find a nice eastern facing view. Off in the distance excited Chinese were screaming and shouting. Nearby a woman was singing a Chinese song. Whoever said that Americans are annoyingly loud never hiked with Chinese people. Finally dawn broke. We could see swarms of clouds over the first row of mountains but it was by no means the most spectacular sunrise I have ever seen. After a quick jaunt down the mountain, we had a few snacks for breakfast and headed off in the correct direction to Brightness Peak. We wandered around taking a few side trails and tons of photos but eventually made it to the 1860 m summit, rising an estimated 200 m from the Pai Yun Lou hotel. Our time was roughly 2 hours and 45 minutes. There was even a hotel up on the peak and we were thankful we weren't staying there. I'm not sure we would've found it or even made it up there yesterday. We decided this would be a good viewing area for sunset. We grabbed some food at the shop up on the summit and then headed back to our hotel for a nice two hour nap.

-Julia

P.S. One little side note. Its about a 2400 foot climb from the base of Mt. Huangshan to our hotel, and from there another 600 feet to Brightness Peak.

Huangshan Sunset

September 23, 2009

Huangshan Sunrise Photos

September 23, 2009

Huangshan Mountain

September 22, 2009

9-22-09

Today I woke up to the sun beaming into our train cabin. Again, there was no food service, so Julia and I snacked on US crackers and an apple. We arrived in Huangshan city around 9 am and were met by another tour guide named Jack. Apparently Jack is a very popular English name among tour guides (however, the tour guide also had a Chinese name). We then started our 45 minute ride to the base of the Huangshan Mountain gates. Along the way we picked up some water for 1.5 yuan each, which is cheap compared to the 10 Yuan you'll pay per bottle on the mountain. Food and water is very expensive on the mountain because everything is hiked up the mountain by porters. We first arrived at a big bus station where the Chinese tourists can take specially authorized taxes or buses to the top (the government of China has limited to the number of vehicles on the main road up to the base of the Huangshan gates due to heavy traffic and accidents). However, because we were foreigners Jack was able to acquire a special permit that let us drive our tour van up to the gates.