Advertisement
I thought I'd written in our blog just a few weeks ago - but when I checked today, it's been 6 weeks! I am so sorry, apparently I'm slacking, and didn't even know it. It sounds kind of funny, but after awhile - even in a foreign country - life starts to feel routine, and there's nothing exciting to write home about. We did one little trip that I'll tell you about, and there is more... read on...
First of all, thanks to all of you who write and tell us you're thinking of us! You have no idea what an encouragement those thoughts are on some days. Honestly, the last couple weeks have been a little tough. We booked our tickets home a few weeks ago (we arrive in Kelowna on June 26th at 3:07pm), and since then it's been really tough NOT to think about and obsess about coming home. We desperately want to live in the present, to enjoy the remainder of our time here, but it's proven a challenge. However, we have dear friends here as well that don't let us forget that we are loved - and we're gonna miss them like crazy! The next
6 or so weeks that we have left are going to be full of parties, shopping, dinners, and friends - we can't wait!
But first of all, let me tell you about our little trip we took a couple weeks ago! We went to Wudang Shan, one of the top Taoist mountains in China. It is literally covered with temples, martial arts academies, and small family run hotels. We hopped on a train on Friday night, and arrived in the small town of Shiyan about 7am the next morning. It was such a last minute trip that we didn't really prepare anything, other then copying out the applicable pages from our Lonely Planet guide book. It was actually a lot of fun, trying to figure out where to go and how to actually get to the mountain. With my limited Chinese, and a lot of miming and pointing, we figured out that the bus taking us to Wudang Shan left from the road across from the train station (about the size of any local Walmart). What we didn't expect, was this screeching careening rusting vehicle they called a bus! Haha it was so much fun, though people with weaker
stomachs then ours would have been hurling out the side of the bus. The city was so cute - there were these little tiny three wheeled cars everywhere, I got a few pictures of them.
When we arrived at the entrance gate, we looked around, but couldn't see any mountains! Finally, we found a man who understood our bad Chinese, and he pointed out the way to the ticket counter. We joined the hundreds of people already in line - our first taste of the lines on Wudang Shan! They were everywhere - for buses, for tickets, for food, for souvenirs - and it wasn't even a holiday! Thank goodness we didn't go on the holiday or we would have wanted to shoot ourselves before even getting to the mountain! Finally we got our tickets and got on our first bus - after much pushing and shoving to get there. You pay an entrance fee to the mountain, then all the buses on the mountain are free! There are various points to stop, and you can actually tell the driver if you want to get off the bus and he will stop. And sometimes, they'll even pick you up
again! LOL
Our first plan of action was to get to the top, where there were some hotels. We figured we'd get a room, then do some hiking! This proved easy - the first hotel we went into was clean, and a very very good price. We three shared a room, and although it was Chinese in every way (including the shower and the toilet) it was clean and comfortable. Then we set out. We first visited a temple set into the cliff, I'd never seen anything like it! It was my favorite part of the trip for sure! Then we set off for the peak, which we were told was quite a hike (they lied - it was excruciating!!!). We starting around 1pm, and didn't stop, other then to gasp at the top of each set of stairs. They went on forever!!! The scenery was absolutely amazing though, and I would have had a million pictures of it if we hadn't gotten a bad batch of batteries - we went through 30-some batteries in two days!
Did I mention that Wudang Shan is the birthplace of internal kung fu? As in Tai Chi (here in China it's
Taiqi), and Wu Shu. It's amazing, everywhere you go you can buy swords, and take lessons in the arts.
Anyways, we hiked and hiked - and I was quite proud of myself, I kept up with the boys pretty good! When you hike over 12 kms in one day - about 10 of those up or down stairs - your legs start acting like jello no matter who you are! By the time we returned to our hotel, we could barely make it up the three flights of stairs to get to our room. We didn't talk - we just gasped, drank some water, and passed out on our beds. We somehow made it back downstairs to grab a little dinner, then it was back to bed.
Sunday morning we made it out of the hotel by 10am - we still had half a mountain to explore. We decided to take the bus to the other side of the mountain, and go up to the peak by chair lift. What we didn't plan on was... the lines! We waited in line almost two hours to go up the lift, then another hour at the top to go down
the lift. And that was our afternoon! We wasted it standing in line!!! Grrr...
We hoped on the bus, headed back to the bottom, caught the bus back to Shiyan, and found our train. We crashed hard on the way to Wuhan, and arrived on Monday morning just in time for work.
Other then our trip, we haven't done a lot. We've been spending a lot of time inside places with air conditioning since our trip - it's been hot! Summer is here, the humidity is in the high 90's and it's 35 degrees!!! It's supposed to cool down for a day or two this week (meaning 29 degrees with rain!!!) and then it's back to the oppressive heat! We really feel for our students - no AC in the classroom makes for some pretty hot days! Not to mention, some really grumpy students (and sometimes teachers too😉.
Uploading pictures onto this site takes a lot of time and patience - however I do have more pictures on the internet. Email me for the links😊
I will do my best to keep you updated more frequently - thanks for your patience! We miss you all, and
hope to hear from you very soon!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 10; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0254s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb