Chronicles of E²: Huang Shan

Huang Shan is a series of mountains in An Hui province that are unlike any other mountains I had seen before (except I had been here once before, 20 years ago). If you have seen Chinese ink paintings of these sort of weird looking rocky mountains, well, they really look like that. We took the cable car up the mountain, then hiked for an hour up and down thousands of steps. Breathtaking views at every turn! Steps and steps and more steps. We stopped for lunch at one of only two hotels at the top of the mountain. Nothing grows up there, so all our food and supplies had to be carried by people! They save the cable cars for people, we were told. These guys carry supplies on bamboo sticks over their shoulders. Backbreaking work! Tourists who can't do the hike can hire bamboo sadan chairs carried by two men. All four of us made the hike which was not a piece of cake, especially with the higher altitude. After lunch, a group of us went further on the trail for another 1.5 hours, up and down more steps! Yikes!!! The view was truly beautiful even though the weather wasn't perfect. Then it was another hour hike back to take the cable car down. Our feet and legs were ssoooore! The guide took those of us who wanted to a foot massage place. This is not like one of those relaxing Swedish massages. This massage sort of "beats" the hurt out of you. I think I felt better afterwards... :o\

The next morning, after touring another scenic spot in Huang Shan, we headed out to Nanjing, which was about 4-5 hours away. Nanjing had been the capital city of many dynasties throughout history, including the Republic of China. We visited the mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of the ROC, and climbed 392 steps to get to the top to pay our respects. The structure complex is very impressive and beautiful. Our local tour guide was very good explaining the rather tragic history of the city of Nanjing, made me wish I had paid more attention to my history teachers when I was growing up in Taiwan.

We have dubbed the angry guy on our bus "angry bird." He has gone off three more times for various reasons. I think most people on our tour just sort of give him space and secretly roll their eyes and/or chuckle a bit. And there is a Mrs. Angry bird as well, but she's not quite as bad.

I still can't get onto my blog to see how it looks or even get onto web sites. I think most sites are censored. This is China after all. I'll try and post pictures. I'm glad just to have wifi access in the room.

There are strangely shaped trees growing out of the mountains. Note the bamboo sedan chairs. Mr. Angry Bird hired one of these chairs for his wife and threw his 2nd or 3rd (lost track) tantrum when some stranger posed for a picture in the chair during a brief stop. We had to roll our eyes and snicker a bit.