Ouch My "Blog" Hurts...

Here is the Restaurant we road to

 Nimen Hao!
So this post took longer to write than I usually would take, mostly because I wasn't really sure my hands would be able to type.
Thursday, during the Mid-Autumn Break, Han, Li's husband, offered to take us all on relatively short bike ride to the Hunguagwe Temple and tomb, about 20km outside of Luoyang.  Now this trip had three purposes, first to see the beautiful country side, second to eat some awesome mutton soup, and third to actually see the tomb and the temple.

Our rides, all ten of them

Everything started so easily, Han explained that this ride would probably take about an hour and a half to get there.  The ride was not too difficult, and the scenery was awesome.  Once we finished with the temple and the group decided that we would take a short detour to the Yellow River, Han was pretty sure that is would only be about another 10km, pretty easy ... alas it was not to be...

This soup was awesome, even with the gelatin cubes of blood

We needed to take a slight detour around a brand new power plant... a 30 minute detour.  Then we were back on track, a mere hour more of riding, up hill, and we arrived at the Yellow river, a mere 10 km from Xiaolangdi Dam (Three Gorges Dam).  this is when we realized that we had to follow the river back to Luoyang, and we had to ride up stream (and up hill). Now out of the the ten of us, there are really only 2 avid bikers (and I'm not one of them), it's hard to to really explain the the ridiculously intense hills that we had to ride up.  I do not like riding my bike in the mountains...especially up mountains.  Now both Li and Han were surprised by the intensity of this stage of the ride, apparently neither of them had actually made this ride before.  I can't count the times I heard one of them tell us that "this is the last hill", or "It's all down hill to Luoyang from here", only to find yet another freaking hill. 
Now I'm always up for an adventure, but when an hour and a half bike ride turns into a twelve hour bike ride, things have gotten out of hand a bit... I kept telling my self that the scenery was worth the ride, and that's true, but I'm not sure that the scenery was worth the inabiilty to sit for two days... Enjoy some of the pictures taken during this great adventure:

 

Andy, one of our music teachers, at Hunguangwe Temple

The Granny Cypress, over 800 years old

The entrance to the tomb, we were not allowed to take photos inside

The Corn fields in the country side

Our massive line of bikes on the way to the Yellow river

One of the many Cave-Homes, people actually live in these, they have electricity, and heat

Michael encouraging Jing to keep going (It's amazing what a snickers can accomplish)

Here is the half completed bridge we had to walk our bikes across

See the Yellow River in the distance? Me either...

It's harvest season, the local farmers are drying their corn before they sell it, they hang it everywhere

The green you see on the street is actually sesame, before it's dried and whacked

Neighbors, new and old houses side-by-side

More of the beautiful country side

One of the ridiculous hills we had to ride up

 

Xiolangdi Dam from the bridge

The natural geology of the three gorges

Han, Li, Barbara, Matthew, Jing, Me, Kim, Michael, and Skyla (Andy took the picture)

At the near top of the a hill, we had to ride our bikes through this tunnel...

When we realized we had taken the long way back

Just past the dam, still not at the top...

Andy, taking a picture of the reservoir, still not at the top...

A strip mine near closer to the top, but still not there...

Some young onlookers who found our arrival to be very interesting in their little town

Finally the last hill

A very appropriate sign, finally back in the city

after 12 hours... this is how I felt...

Zaijian