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Published: October 20th 2012
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Lushan Mountain(s)
Turns out it's not really just one mountain, it's more like a gathering of mountains that's called Lushan. OK, so it's been an interesting couple of weekends. Last weekend the Cherians, plus some of their friends plus me all went to Lushan Mountain. I wasn't sure what to expect but was just told it'd be about 180 RMB to get in and then up the mountain. So we left early Saturday morning (7:30 >_
When we first got there the mountains honestly didn't look that impressive. Then we got closer. I've seen lots of mountains in lots of different countries and these could defnitely compete. They were large and made even more beautiful with the fog that had settled over most everything. It took us a bit to get sorted out because Pravine wanted to use our bus but it turned out it was a few seats too big. We had to take a public bus which got us up the mountain in about 40 minutes. I was told that some people like to hike from the base to the top which takes about 4 hours. It always sounds fun to me in theory and then when I'm in a vehicle driving up I pretty much tell myself how stupid that sounds.
Once we got up there
we were almost physically assaulted by vendors. Some were pretty calm but others were up in your face "you know you want to buy this" kind of pushy. I pretty much just walked on by, but when I got a ways in front and looked back, the other women of the group were coming up behind us with flower wreathes for their hair. I just stared until Camilla came up and gave me one. Not something I would normally buy, but I saw quite a few people with them on throughout the day, so I didn't feel nearly as geeky as I normally would.
After that was a lot of walking. That whole idea of walking from the base to the top was ruthlessly crushed once I saw how much walking around we did once we were at the top. When I told my students about the trip when I got back though many said that to go to Lushan mountain it's best if you take a week to really explore and see the sights. If you have only a little time 3 days. If you have absolutey only a limited time you need to spend one day there
The rubbish stumps
To be "cute" or something they designed the trash bins to look like stumps. Problem is they had holes in the bottoms and trash would leak out... and spend the night so you can see the sunrise and sunset. So what we did with only spending the day there was considered pretty much a blink trip.
The walking was worth it though. We saw some beautiful views and architecture. Now that I really think about it though, it must of been stinkin hard to build most of those older buildings. There's even some stone architecture up there! I can't even imagine the kind of work that went into some of those historical sites. Many of the views sadly though were tainted by trash or too much commercialism. There was a waterfall that we wanted to see, but it cost 50 RMB to get there by chair lift or 35 RMB to WALK there! Once we got there we had to pay tickets to get past the gate, then there were all of the dozens of shops along the way down the path, and then when we finally got there the waterfall was a sad sad sight. It was definitely a waterfall, but there were fences, trash and other things that detracted from its natural beauty. Lushan mountain has so much potential, but because of the cultural
Rocking the wreathes
The women decided to let the guys show off in their beautiful wreathes. habit of throwing things on the ground and the fact that it's not just one, but many levels of government that "owns" the mountain, it was hard to fully enjoy everything there was to see.
The trip overall was very nice and we were reassured by the Cherians that we'd probably all come back to see the rest of the sites and the village. I'm glad I got the chance to go and was surprised beyond belief that my legs didn't feel like liquid pain the next day. I actually barely felt a twinge. All I can think is that Diane's training actually paid off. : )
So while I was up in the clouds last weekend I participated in something more down to earth today. Patrick invited the other English teachers to go on a field trip that he was informed about from another school. So this morning at the horrible time 7:30 (I hope this doesn't become a habit!), we made our way to a school closer to Nanchang, boarded a bus with some middle schoolers and started out to the country. It took us about an hour to get there, but in the end we
Viewing Pagoda
A place historically used to come and look at the moon. found ourselves out on a mini farm ready to harvest some rice plants! There wasn't much to it, but it was hard work. I definitely had a couple go's at it, but the students did pretty much all the work and cleared out a section of the rice field in about an hour and a half. Afterwards we were all tired, sweaty and ready for lunch which thankfully was provided and was actually rather good.
Patrick later told me that the trip was done in honor of Founder's Day and is meant to give city kids an experience on the farm by showing them where rice comes from and what it looks like and so on. I think it was really a good experience for all the kids and am glad I got to experience something so cultural.
So, another week here and gone and one more thing to add to my resume. ^_^ Take care everyone!
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anonymous
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funny