Yellow Mountain Trip

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Last weekend Bob was in Shanghai to visit. We decided on a short weekend trip to Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain). It is actually a mountain range which is located in Anhui province about 5 hours (by car) west of Shanghai. The peaks rise up to about 1800 meters (6000 feet) above sea level. This is a very famous area in China and is considered somewhat of a pilgrimage for many native Chinese. So, with the cold weather setting in, we avoided what would have otherwise been massive crowds of people. In fact the weather was just about perfect for hiking.

The first night we checked into the hotel, and went to the local bamboo forest. It wasn’t much different from other bamboo forests I’ve seen in China, but nonetheless a pleasant walk. It consisted of a short (1km) path along a river at the base of the mountains. It was a good way to burn off the last hour of sunshine that day. Bob and I enjoied imagining how high the water must get there in the spring and how it would be to kayak that canyon.

After the bamboo forest, our local cab driver offered to take us to his family restaurant where we had a really delicious local meal. Then they arranged for another car to take us to the local hot springs. My expectations were pretty low as I hadn’t been to a hot springs in China. Turns out the hot springs are part of a hotel a little ways up the mountains. It was done very well, with about 30 outdoor pools of different sizes and temperatures. We found an empty pool and got it. Turns out the reason our pool was empty was because it was the hottest pool of the lot. Something like 105 degrees. The rest were probably 95 degrees and easier for an extended soak.

The next day we got moving early. It took us about an hour to get from our hotel to the base of the mountain (where the trail/tram starts). We elected not to ride the tram up but to hike it instead. The entire ‘trail’ is made from hand carved steps that never stop going up. The climb took us about 2 hours and covered a distance of about 7km and an elevation gain of about 1000 meters. It was a workout to say the least. I’d guess that less than 90-95% of the tourists there skipped the hike part and simply rode the tram to the top.

Once at the top there is a variety of places to visit with paths that follow the ridge lines around various peaks. Due to limited time we tried to cover some of the more famous places and were able to see the famous “Welcome Pine tree” (Ying Ke Pine), the “Sea of Clouds” and a number of other peaks with really impressive views. All in all we spent about 6 hours hiking before we decided to head down. We took the tram down the mountain which was pretty cool as well. I think the tram had an average pitch of something like 37 degrees which made for a white knuckle ride down.

Things I’d do next time – stay on the mountain. There are a bunch of hotels located on the mountain. I’d try to stay in one and catch the sunrise and sunsets from above. I’d also spend two days hiking the area. Some of the trails go way back to the north and would be interesting to explore.

Here is the wiki link to Yellow mountain for more reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Huang

 

Muifa update

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Looks like Shanghai dodged the storm. High winds and light rain today but nothing like what was being predicted. I think the storm stayed east over the ocean as it passed Shanghai. It did cool things off a bit here which is a nice change.

Typhoon Muifa

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This weekend typhoon Muifa is supposed to reach the East China sea and impact Shanghai and the surrounding province. It will be our first typhoon…and so far, it’s just been a bit windy. The wind of the past few days has actually cleared out the pollution in the air and made for some really clear days. There is supposed to be a lot of rain and winds of about 50-60mph in Shanghai. It’s a little exciting – I like a good storm.

Click Here is the link to the details on the typhoon

Quiz – what is the difference between a Typhoon and a Hurricane.

Trip to Beijing

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Recently returned from a family trip to Xi’an and Beijing. We visited the Warriors in Xi’an, the Great Wall, summer palace, Tiananmen Square as well as some of the local neighborhoods in Beijing (hutongs). Mom, Dad, Steve, Kel, Maria and I were all there together. Here are some photos… more to come soon.

Back in the PRC

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The past few weeks have been great. I just returned to the PRC from a two week trip to Boise for work. Not much has changed in Boise and it was great to be back to clean up the yard, turn on the sprinklers, coordinate lawn service etc. and send off the Biggars as they are moving to MN to be closer to Sara’s family. Before I left for the states Jim and Margaret were on the tail end of their visit which was great to see them and share the experience of spending time in China with them.

On my way to work this morning while waiting at a traffic light a motorcycle was splitting lanes with a raw pig carcass (cut in half) draped over the back of the bike on it’s way to become lunch. Unbelievable. Everyday here is an eye-opening adventure.

“New” bike

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After a long search I bought a second bike, street cruiser style and very traditional Chinese bike. In fact it’s an old Chinese bike company named Yong jiu which has been making bicycles since 1940. I’m not sure if I can figure out how old mine is but it’s old. I bought it from one of the local bike repair guys. I had approached him last Friday and asked him if he could find me an old, cheap bicycle (with some help from Maria I was able to say that much to him). He told me to come back in two days. Anyways, it worked, and he delivered exactly what I asked for. It was a good 150 yuan purchase (about 25 dollars). Any idea why I would want to buy an old, cheap bike?

Da Jin Lake Trip Report

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More trip photos HERE

Last weekend Maria and I travelled back to the Fu Jian province of China along with 35 of my coworkers to a place named Da Jin Lake. The office here in Shanghai makes two group outings each year. The first is in the spring and the later in the fall. They decide on a place within mainland China to visit and organize a group trip to sightsee.
We left on Friday evening – on a slow train that takes longer than usual to get to Fu Jian province so that you can get a good nights sleep before arriving. It was actually very comfortable similar to the experience I’ve had in Eurpoe on overnight trains. There were four people per ‘room’ on the HP car of the train. We bunked with the only other American couple on the train Fred and Nancy. They just arrived for their one year assignment (like us) in Shanghai. The Chinese co-workers gave us the ‘fourth room’ of course. The number four is generally considered bad luck by the Chinese people. We had a great time and no bad luck.
We arrived in WuYiShan China the next morning around 7am. We noticed from the beginning that the Chinese folks are used to being on a seriously tight schedule for everything. We immediately left the train, got onto a bus and went to have breakfast. Typical Chinese breakfast includes food most westerners would view as luch or dinner type foods. But they do like to eat eggs (boiled), and pastry like things in addition to the pickled vegtables, rice soup, and various pork dishes. After lunch we took a two hour bus ride to the Da Jin lake area. The mountains were everywhere from the moment we arrived in Wuyishan and arrived in Taining, the town that hosts the lake we were destined for. Wuyishan and Taining are considered tier 3 or 4 cities in China which translates into smaller towns by US standards. Basically they measure population in thousands instead of millions. So it was a very needed break from the busy city life.
The first day we took a three hour boat ride around the lake. The boat was huge, and there were too many people for our liking. There were three stops, one to a giant cave like crack you could hike through (along with 100 other Chinese people). The second was an ancient monestary perched high in the remote area and the third was a 40 foot waterfall to see. All were amazing and the place was beautiful but we were still stuck in a crowd of people.
That evening we were pretty tired and went to bed on the early side. The next day we were to meet for breakfast at 7am with the group. That day we covered a lot of ground. After breakfast we went to a valley where we spent two hours on a long walk through a rain forest like area. The bamboo forrest was pretty cool. The bamboo was enormous – diameter reaching up to 10 inches or so. It was also pretty cool to see the new growing bamboo. There were waterfalls, fresh water springs and giant rock formations. It was a totally different China than we had seen before.
After that, we went rafting – China style. It was a 16 km ride over two hours down a narrow creek in a bamboo hand made raft with two men navigating (one in the front, the other in the back). We enjoyed the ride from bamboo made chairs attached to the ‘raft’. There was even a little swift water with some very very small rapids. It was a super beautiful ride. It was through a very remote and narrow canyon. For me it was the highlight of the trip. I miss being on a river in the woods.
Afterwards we visited a park that had a bunch of geological stuff from the region. It wasn’t very interesting. As we headed to the exit of the outdoor park we were stopped and asked to participate in a TV interview with a man who later we found out was the mayor of the Taining city. He asked questions in Chinese and I answered in English. His questions were things like why we came to his city, what activities we were enjoying, how long we were staying and what we would do if we were to stay longer. The Fu Jian province doesn’t see many Westerners despite it’s natural beauty. So I imagine he was planning to use us to show off the ‘international’ draw of his city. We never found out if we made the local news or not.
That evening we rushed back to the Wuyishan area to hob back on the train back to Shanghai. Again it was an all night train ride for about 10 hours. We enjoyed the company of our American friends again and got a reasonably good nights sleep. We arrived back in Shanghai around 7am on Monday morning and I was in the office by 9am for work.
I should comment on the Chinese travel experience. We had a tour guide which is typical for Chinese tourists. He had this damn loudspeaker and microphone and wouldn’t be quiet for pretty much the entire weekend. In addition to explaining the upcoming schedule his role was to explain the more than 5000 years of history relevant to the areas we were visiting. But he did it all in Chinese so we didn’t understand any of it. And it was really loud. It was pretty strange to be run around all day in a group to see this, see that, hurry up and eat, then back to see this, see that, eat again…repeat. We’ve never really travelled in a tour group like that…and certainly not Chinese style. It was it’s own cultural experience in it’s own.

Xiamen trip report

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How many hours is the train ride from Xiamen to Shanghai? Pretty long – and it’s a nice ride through the countryside in South East China.
We are on our way back home to Shanghai. We spent the past few days in Xiamen which is a city in the Fu Jian province of China on the south east coast. The first day we arrived in the early evening. The first thing we saw in Xiamen was a Walmart, the second was McDonalds. It was cold there. Part of the reason we came to Xiamen was to find warmer weather but it felt like we hadn’t left Shanghai. This was a problem for us both because we had dressed and packed for spring/summer weather. In truth, the last two days of our time there we enjoyed very beautiful warm weather. After an 8 hour train ride we were fatigued and hungry but found our way to the hotel which wasn’t far from the train station. That night we pretty much ate some dinner at a delicious Chinese resturaunt, drank some tea and sacked out.
The next day we made our way to Gulongyu island which is a celebrated Chinese sightseeing island just a few minutes by boat across the bay. We ended up getting on the one ferry that also provided a round trip around the 2-km wide island. It was nice to see the entire island from the boat but it took a while to finish the tour. We met some nice Chinese teenagers who wanted their picture with us. There are not as many foreigners in Xiamen so we drew a lot of attention everywhere we went. The island is a beautiful place and they don’t allow motor vehicles on it so it’s realtively quiet and free of cars and traffic. The island has some very beautiful places, including a Souzhong (?) garden which also contained a piano museaum. The piano museaum wasn’t as interesting as we had hoped. After the garden we pretty much both felt overwhelmed by the number of Chinese tourists and all of the tourist shops selling overpriced goods. We left and went back to the mainland for dinner and a massage. My massage was pretty good, Maria’s was another story. We are both still a little sore from them. Chinese massage can be pretty rough. I’ll never forget my first Chinese massage. The next Chinese word I learned as “qing” meaning “softer”. That is a useful word.
The next day was the highlight of the trip for us. We went to the largest Buddist temple in the province. Shortly after we got there all these monks started coming out and lining up and getting ready for something. We stood at the top of the stairs of the main temple where they had lined up along with about a dozen other observers with a nice view of the event which lasted about 10 minutes of which we understood nothing. Some old monk who was of some sort of importance was wheeled down the center, lifted up the stairs in his wheelchair and placed inside the temple for about 30 seconds before the whole thing was over and everyone quickly shuffled away. The monestary had professional photographers and it was some sort of a big deal so we will have to try to figure out the importance when we get home. Maria and I got a few good shots which we will post. The temple is at the base of the Wulao peak. At the back of the monestary there are endless paths that will take you up the mountain to nice views overlooking the city. The paths are like a maze and some simply lead to a deadend near some gigantic rock, others to caves filled with hundrededs (possibly thousands) of small buddhist statues and others than continue up the mountain. Most of the people stop at the top of the mountain but we found a small trail that led off the back side of the mountain and met a man dressed in military fatigues in a small shack. Turns out he was with the park service and was there to charge entrance to the most beautiful park in Xiamen.
From there we spent the rest of the day without crowds of people wandering around through beautiful forests, the sounds of birds and a continuing maze of paths. It was the first quiet and peaceful place we have been in four months with fresh air, the true sound of nature and very few people. It was an outstanding escape and contained lots of interesting places. The park is huge and you could easily spend an entire day there. We stayed until it was dark.
Today was our last day in Xiamen and we had lunch at a delicous Chinese resturaunt we found then visited Zhongshan park and went to the train station. Zhongshan park is a nice park in the center of Xiamen, nice to watch the locals who gather there to play the card and checker like games.
We’ve been on the train for three hours headed home and are still among mountains and smaller towns. Lots of farms and rice fields as far as the eye can see in some places – it’s really incredible how vast the rice fields are.
Next weekend we have a three day trip with my co-workers. We are going to a place named Da Jin Lake. I don’t know much about it yet other than we leave on Friday evening and it’s a few hours (3 maybe) from Shanghai by train.