Blogs from Huangshan, Anhui, China, Asia - page 8

3rd - 4th of January 2009 EDIT: I forgot to post the pictures from the town of Huangshan and the markets - So I’ve posted them here for your viewing pleasure. Huangshan Mountain aka Yellow Mountain is a beautiful place in Huangshan. It’s a favourite destination for tourists and photographers a like due to its height and its natural beauty. I experienced this beauty first hand when we arrived at the base of the mountain on the 3rd of January. We were told to pack a night worth of clothing since we would be staying on top of the mountain overnight. This complicated matters a little for myself since I was already lugging around about 13 kilograms of gear on my back and needing my hands free to take photos. Fortunately I was able to attach ... read more

Thursday, October 2 - Friday October 3 We didn't have a tour guide the rest of our time in Huangshan. We spent Thursday morning being very lazy at the hotel, but soon tired of that and decided to head out for some sort of activity. We got a taxi to take us to a park we had seen on a map and soon discovered our parks in Shanghai are much different than small town parks. This park had some pretty views and bridges, but it also had a pond with pretty nasty looking water and some large dead fish floating in it. We played count the fishies for a bit and then moved on to see what other things we could find. The kids had way more energy than the adults. Mark and I were sore ... read more

Tuesday we left the hotel at about 7:15am. The drive to the Mount Huangshan took an hour and then we had to take a bus to the cable car which took us across to the scenic areas. We knew we were going to be walking around and seeing sights but I had not really prepared myself or the kids for the 7 hours of hiking we ended up doing. Oops. They were for the most part troopers. They were for the rest of the time typical kids who wanted to go back to the hotel. It was a lot of walking. Up steep inclines of stone steps and back down only to go back up. It was a long day. We did see some amazing views. The pictures will speak for themselves. I suppose looking ... read more

(Day 132 on the road)According to China Daily (the Chinese government-owned English language propaganda newspaper), 862 million Chinese watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics. A good week later, it seemed like those same 862 million Chinese had chosen to climb the Yellow Mountains at just the same time that we were climbing it. The masses of people and the noise on the mountain were just unbelievable, and completely destroyed the experience for me. They were like ants on the mountain, and their sole purpose for being up there seemed to be in making as much noise as possible, as opposed to enjoying the scenery. So if you are contemplating about going to Huang Shan, thing twice. Even if I had the chance, I certainly would not go back. Getting to Huang Shan involved an epic ... read more

The bus was grand and we arrived in Tunxi 7 hours later. The town was deadly- really typically Chinese and really well kept- we were impressed and ready to give China another fair go. The hostel was pretty cool too. We had to leave at 6 the next morning to get to the mountain which was a total epic to get there. It’s a mountain range that has apparently inspired all of China’s poets, painters and philosophers over the centuries and is a haven for hoards of Chinese tourists. We knew all of this before we went but we were the ONLY westerners that we saw there bar two we spotted as we were leaving. The stares and pointing were really starting to wear thin with both of us by this point and no one likes ... read more