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Published: September 29th 2006
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After leaving the comforts of Shanghai, I was off on yet another train to Huangzhou, just 2 hours South of Shanghai, to explore the quaint splendors of the lakeside town which had been recommended to me by MANY travelers I had met along the way.
On the train I got to practice my Japanese with the 3 girls in my car. It always amuses people when I speak Japanese. If they're Japanese the usual response is "Wow! That's wonderful! You can speak Japanese! What a surprise!" If they're foreigners like me the response is usually, "Dude, that's CRAZY! It sounds so weird!" Either way, it amuses me😉
Just off the train I met a mother-daughter team, named Jenny and Meridith Meador from Seattle, Washington. I of course talked my way into sharing a taxi with them and we ended up at the Huangzhou International Hostel where I was delighted to find that they had 4-person dorm rooms available, because 10 people in one room was beginning to scare me again.
Wanting to get right down to my culture invading, we locked our stuff up and proceeded to our first stop, the Luiland Wenying Park. As soon as we
stopped to take our first picture, a friendly Chinese family came over, just begging to know where we were from and to become our tour guides for the afternoon. Louis was the head of the family and spoke brilliant English (as he should be, being a University professor at an English school). He detailed for us the history of the park and of the particular statue we were standing beside, and told us with absolute seriousness that we weren't allowed to leave Huangzhou without visiting the Dragon Well Tea Village. After profusely promising we would hike up there the next day, we bid adieu to Louis and his family and continued strolling through the peaceful park.
With the sun setting at 5pm in Huangzhou, it meant that sightseeing was cut a little short for the day and we headed for dinner at Laguna Butterfly, which was nestled in an Amazon-like garden. Gorgeous Chinese food in an air conditioned building! GOLD!
The next morning, being the keeners we are, we set off at 8am, rented bikes and began our FULL day of culture invading. (Is anyone getting sick of this expression of mine or is 'culture invading' working for
ya?!)
Off on our granny bikes we went and stopped first at the Leifing Pagoda perched on the top of a mountain which all the tourists were taking an elevator up to. Yes, seriously, there was an elevator up to it¡Kon the mountainside. I'm serious.
Across the road was the Jingsi Temple grounds, and although I¡¦ve seen one thousand and one temples in the past 4 years, Jenny had NEVER ventured into one, so we paid the admission fee and Meridith and I showed her the ropes. Like me, Jenny has a thing for photographing doorways so we got along just fine! And Meridith is a vegan so again I had someone to compare notes with. They both made fantastic travel partners!
In the afternoon, Meridith went back to Shanghai for work while her mom Jenny and I biked up to the top of Qipan Mountain to the Dragon Well Tea Village. (Well actually, we could only bike about 6km to the bottom of the mountain road because bikes weren't allowed on the steep and curvy roads. So we took a taxi the rest of the way up¡Kand after seeing the thin roads, I'm VERY happy we
didn't try to bike it!)
Up in the village, we explored the old temple which was like a hangout for the old folks. They sat in silence with one another playing chess in the middle of the forest, drank tea with their loved ones and fully enjoyed the fresh air and intimate atmosphere. Jenny and I were astounded by the tranquility this place brought. It was as if you were transported into the past. Nothing too fancy, just trees and tea. Very peaceful.
We kept finding little trails through the village and after QUITE the climb we came out at the top of the mountain. All of a sudden, the trees dropped away and everywhere you looked was tea plants. The smell was pure heaven and as I took a video of the view from the top, I only wished that there was also the technology available to record smell.
It took us awhile to get back down again, but the journey was entertaining as we consistently were running into distractions: HUGE centipedes, babies trying to climb the steps with their grandfathers, bikers stupid enough to try racing down the path and other travelers on their way
up asking, "How much further is the top, GOHD!!!"
Out of the old village, we were touted by an old man who promised us fresh tea at his house. So AGAIN, we climbed up a different pathway where he welcomed us into his house and his wife served us fresh tea. He swindled Jenny into buying some expensive tea leaves and then later on I bought some cheaper stuff¡K I think she was pretty mad I got the better deal. Oh well, it's just tea!
Getting a taxi back DOWN the mountain proved to be more of a feat then either of us had expected. Jokingly, I put my thumb out for passing vans seeing if we could get a ride down. Low and behold, a Malaysian guy stopped his car and came over to us and asked if we needed a lift! Oh yeah! So we met William, Rebecca, Ooi Seoh who work for Ernst & Young in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and we went with them to buy some MORE tea! The place where they wanted to purchase their tea from, was a classic building with pictures of the celebrities who had once sat in the same
chairs that we were in. The only ones I really recognized were Queen Elizabeth and General Mao...cool enough for me!
So after taste-testing some tea, and our new Malaysian friends buying up a storm, they dropped us off at our bikes and we rode back to town. I was so happy to meet some more nice Malaysians, as I'll be there in a month or so and will be glad to hook up with them again for some Malay-styled partying!
That night, Jenny was taking the train back to Shanghai so after a quick dinner we parted ways and I returned to the hostel to pack my things for the early trip back to Shanghai in the morning.
Huangzhou was an awesome place; I only wish I had had more time to see more of the sights. Surly I'll be back to China at some point in the future, and I'd love to spend 4or 5 more days there. Gorgeous, it t'was!
At 6am the next morning (September 11th...eek!), I headed out of the Huangzhou train station, went back to the Shanghai South station, caught the metro to the main terminal and after going through immigration,
caught my 27 hour long train to Hong Kong!
Phew! One more belated blog finished!
Hong Kong and Macau updates are next, stay tuned everyone! And leave me comments!!! You KNOW they make me happy! *And for those of you who ARE leaving me comments, stop starting them with "Ok ok Krysta, here's your freakin' comment!*
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Chee Keong
non-member comment
Did you learn any Chinese?
yeah, learning and speaking foreign language is fun! did you practise speaking Chinese with the Chinese people too? Surely, reading is not a problem for you, right? Love p/s if you miss it, you still can speak Chinese with Malaysians. Of course, Malaysian version of Chinese!