Day 19: Hiking

Sunday, May 25

Photo 1: Chickens on a motorcycle

Photo 2: Out of the village, into the hills

Photo 3: Me, Bobo, and our favorite teacher

Photo 4: Hochiang, Jonny, Tyler, and Luther being majestic on Brightness Summit.

Photo 5: What it looked like the next day

For my first blog, I thought I had to be more professional and informative instead of writing whatever I felt like. But now I'm feeling more liberal, so there will be none of that this time.

My alarm went off at 6:30, and I managed to shut it off within a couple seconds, thereby beating Hochiang to it. It made me feel better about having him and Jonny make me look like I have no reflexes to speak of while playing Egyptian Ratscrew. Dong Laoshi said she couldn't get to sleep last night because of our banging on the table. 对不起。

We had no water in the hotel this morning, which I only learned after trying to flush the toilet. Luckily it wasn't a heavy load. Please appreciate my euphemism. I don't know why I'm telling you this.

I met up with Alex and Bobo outside to do our early morning hike, then we set out when Dong Laoshi arrived. We crossed over some farmland and over the 500 year old bridge that we'd already been on several times. This time we bore left off the bridge up a paved road and walked through a village. We saw a couple of chickens on a motorcycle, and passed by the man Dong Laoshi met yesterday, who runs a shop from his bed because he suffered an injury 5 years ago and can't move. It's an unfortunate situation, but I admire how he's still able to make a bit of a living on his own. 

Soon we broke out of the village and into the hills. All of the paths were generally only wide enough for one person, used by farmers to access their crops. And a lot of the time we had to make our own way to get around, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After about an hour we reached our highest point, and could see the outline of even taller hills in the mist and the farm plots below. Alex told us, "When you guys remember China I want you to think of this, not Beijing, Nanjing, or any of the big cities." That quote might not be word for word but it's the best I can remember. I think he said that because this is what China is really like in most places, and the cities are more like hotspots. We could only take pictures with 3 of us in them, and Alex told me to use a picture with my favorite teacher. So here's a picture with Dong Laoshi (and Bobo and me). 

Our journey back down was certainly more entertaining, mostly thanks to Bobo slipping and falling. It's funny because no one got hurt. One of those times, Bobo said both her feet came off the ground and she grabbed on to some bamboo to save herself. Alex saw it, and he was dying. Since I didn't see it, I'm going to imagine that after she slipped she swung full circle around the tree, launched off with a backflip or two, and landed gracefully. And that's what really happened, actually. I also fell a couple times, and Alex nearly fell into the stream. 好玩。I've never done this kind of hiking before, and it was really fun. I wish I could find a more creative way to describe it.

Jumping through the next few hours now, we returned to the hotel, ate breakfast, packed to leave for Huangshan, and took a bus to a place to store unneeded luggage. Tyler bought a walking stick that would turn out to be his best purchase in the 24 hours I'm writing about. I could argue that's it's the best purchase of his entire life, but I shan't.

We took another bus on a winding road up the mountain. Throughout today there was a fairly thick white mist that limited vision in any direction. It made me feel like being on an island in the clouds. After the bus, we took cable cars further up. It was very wet, so many of us donned our freshly purchased ponchos. I ripped mine almost instantly. I feel like 'hiking' doesn't describe this well, since it was all on manmade stairs and paths of stone, and that's not my idea of hiking. But for the rest of this blog, hiking = climbing up and down stairs and falling up and down stairs… So we hiked around for 20-30 minutes to the Beihai hotel. I sat in front of a fan in the lobby to dry off a bit. 

Then we went hiking some more. Dong Laoshi took some people on a short walk around, and Alex led the rest of us on a long route to Brightness Summit, the highest accessible/second highest peak on Huangshan. On the way, we spotted a wild fire hydrant. Tyler boasted that he would touch it, but didn't actually go near it. I was very disappointed. Bobo eventually slipped again, and Alex missed a step. I probably did too but I don't remember. Our coordination is 非常好。

We had an enlightening group discussion during the evening. Details, however, are confidential. But honestly I just want to finish up this blog.

After the discussion, we played mafia. To those reading who don't know what that it: I'm sorry, I can't help you. I think Tyler was the best storyteller. Also, when Kim was god her Texas accent seemed more prominent. It was all very entertaining.

- Jimmy