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Published: March 24th 2010
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Our friends, Suzanne and Mark, have been telling us about Moganshan literally for years. Eventually, we experienced first hand what they have been raving about for so long. It was our friend, Ms Victoria's, big 40 and she wanted to do something special and suggested Moganshan as a group...so we did! 13 of us headed off in a not the newest of minibuses after school last Friday. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and the temperature had been up to 26 degrees, so we were all in a very happy, weekend mood.
Although it took us around 4 hours to get our final location, we were not perturbed at all. A couple of stops with a change of tyre as we had a flat didn't even put us off still. It is possible you could say that the windy mountain roads of the Mogan mountain (shan in Chinese means mountain) were a little tummy churning, especially after a whole hour! But we made it to the Songliang Hotel, a very reasonable Chinese hotel in the village at the top of the mountain. We all dumped our bags and ran, as it were....as we were booked into The Lodge for dinner
and we were all famished. As with all good school trips, the younger ones among us had been snacking the whole journey, but we were all very relieved to have a yummy dinner and then to fall into bed.
We had booked Brunch for 11am at the The Lodge for both Saturday and Sunday. Emily at the Lodge was so helpful to us, helping me organise the food and arrangements for the eating times and so on. 6am came around a little early and the children were up with the larks and ready to go...no matter how much coaxing could get them to go back to sleep, so we gave in at about 8am and ventured onto our balcony. Wow....we were met with a beautiful view down the mountain and it was so warm out there, we had our morning cup of tea and the children had their chocolate cheerios out of a plastic cup. The air was so fresh and it felt just like being on holiday.
The children were keen to go and explore downstairs, so they got dressed at lightning speed and headed down to see the toys. We could watch them from our balcony,
but one of our party was down there anyway....one of our colleagues had invited his teacher from Grade 6 along! That was some reunion for them! Ian and I got dressed and joined the children for a short walk but the wind had started to get up and we retreated into the Lodge to await the arrival of the rest of our party for another yummy meal. Then it was definitely time for some exploring of our own. We had heard all about the waterfall, but there were to be huge amounts of steps. The lovely Victoria, although 7 months pregnant, decided to venture with us and she did very well indeed. She even refused the offer of a Sedan chair carried by 2 Chinese men and made it nearly all the way down and back again!
The view was amazing and it was just so wonderful to be breathing fresh air and wandering. Joining us on our weekend away were Ms Fran and Mr Mark, Ms Maddi and her friend who teaches at another school, Ms Alex, and Mr Jesse and Ms Gissy. We all congregated back at the Lodge for a Birthday sing song and absolutely scrumptious
chocolate brownie cake for Victoria.....this weekend seems to be all about food, I am sure Sam will be loving it! It was time to get changed for dinner and give the children a little downtime with cartoons in the room as they had a late night ahead also. We returned for dinnner again at 7.30pm and we all agreed that this dinner was even better than before. We had thick slices of roast pork, with real crackling (!!!), roast pots and veg, followed by chocolate chip cookies to die for. (So amazing in fact, we bought some to bring home even!) Well, we had been advised to bring our own wine and that we did....we were charged corkage but considering the amount of bottles we made it through during the evening, the corkage was money well saved. During all this, the children were so well behaved, it was wonderful. There was a corner of the restaurant set aside for them with toys, colouring and a TV/DVD player. Children are warmly welcomed and there is an outside area which is perfect for them when it is warm. There are also 2 young children who belong to the owner, a British guy
who is married to a Chinese lady, and Sophie and William befriended them.
Anyway, after a few (!!) glasses of vino collapso, it was suddenly 11pm and we thought we should take the children to bed! A wondrous 9 and a half hours later, we woke up before them, relieved that we had not been woken as early as the previous morning. Unfortunately, the weather was not quite as favourable and was too chilly for breakfast on the balcony, even if we had had time....but by the time we had made it down to the Lodge to join the others, it has warmed up and we were able to eat our brunch outside. Trying to make sure we made the most of the outdoors, we ventured for another stroll afterwards, this time to 'Queer Stone Corner'. Oh yes, it is seriously called that! It was a beautiful walk and the best bit for us was the watch William run ahead with 3 dogs for company. This whole weekend was a total outdoor experience for us, and the dogs played a huge part. William was even crying when we got home as he missed Charlie, the black lab, so much!
Yes, we would love a dog, but practically, it is another question!
So, we made it to Queer Stone Corner (snigger snigger) and stopped for a quick peek at....well....orange dust actually.....not sure if you have heard about the sand storm in Beijing, well that totally obscured our view, but not our spirits. Going home did though, which we had to embark upon on our return from our lovely walk.....the windy hairpin bends this time making many more of us feel a little queasy (nothing to do with the vino collapso at all of course!). We were bizarrely relieved to stop for 3 new tyres to be fitted at the bottom of the mountain! It was another long journey back but we were home by 7pm....we felt like we had really had a weekend away.....we will definitely be returning.
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