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Published: April 27th 2007
View from the Top
The town of Tang Yu. For this weekend trip we were invited by some of my students to join them on a little outing. About an hour south of where we live, Xian, there is a town called Tang Yu (pronounced kind of like Tan ewe). It is most well known for it's hot springs and lake of the same name. It's a really nice town but not used to foreigners. The only tourists who usually visit Tang Yu are Chinese so we got a few stares wandering around.
We met up with my students at 8 am on Saturday morning and recieved our "Tour Itinerary". One of the students, Michael, had named himself tour leader and had therefore prepared everything for our trip. We thought it was ,at best, a loose itinerary but he didn't share the same idea. From our meeting point we boarded a bus and after and hour or so we arrived in Tang Yu. We found ourselves a decent hotel for the equivalent of about $2.50 a night and as stated in the tour plan we made our way to a restaurant for a quick meal and then to do some hiking.
The hill we climbed
The tour group
Us with our tour guides on the hike up to the temple. was very pretty and topped with a small temple for the locals. We ended up sitting at the temple for awhile and talking with the care taker. This was a bit difficult, even for our chinese guides because in this area they speak a very specific local dialect. After our short break we made our way back down the mountain and to a small fishing pond.
Most of the fishing places in China are pre-stocked ponds where they feed the fish a little too regularly and anything you catch you are charged by the pound. It was very peaceful and one of the students caught all of our dinner. He ended up snagging two pretty big fish that the owner cleaned and cooked for us. In this area it's very popular to Barbeque the fish with lots of local spices and chili powder. It tasted amazing! After dinner we stayed and played cards for a bit before heading back to the hotel.
Once at the hotel our schedule allowed for a short rest followed by the hot springs. The hot springs probably aren't what you're thinking. They are more like a bath house than anything. I
Mountain top Temple
Resting at the local temple. was in a room with a bath tub with taps comming from the wall, both hot and cold. I was told that the water comes from the natural water of the mountains but who knows. After a day of hiking and fishing I didn't care. It was really relaxing. Once we left the hot springs we made our way back to the hotel to , as stated in the itinerary, "celebrate a small party".
A few of them had prepared songs to sing and one of the students did a monologue from a chinese tv presenter. After a few songs, a few hands of cards, and a few beers we headed off to bed so we would all be rested for our 8am wakeup call.
The next morning after breakfast we headed up to Tang Yu Lake. They have a park that surrounds the lake with lots of activities if you want to pay for them. Among the strangest us and the students were the speed boat trips around the lake ($2 for 3min, alot of money here) and a 200ft. rope bridge you could walk across ($2). The parks here charge for everything! We did
end up taking out some boats onto the lake. We rented a paddle boat and a row boat. We spent about an hour on the lake before returing to the hotel followed by the bus station. After another hour or two we were back at our house asleep.
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Dad
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loved the new blogs
I loved the new pics and stories, if you have anything from Katie's trip I would like to see it. Miss you both, hope to see you this summer. Love ya: Dad