Nimon Hao,
I got my first real taste of actual Chinese hiking this past weekend. Add a cable car ride to 3 hours of wondering the mountain side, very fun. Now most of hiking was done in the late evening and early morning, meaning that some of the mountain was closed to hikers. If you'd like to see the "trails" that we weren't allowed to traverse, you should Google pictures of
"Hua shan".
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| You can see our goal, off in the distance... doesn't look so bad yet. |
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| Beautiful mountain sides |
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| If you look closely you can see the cable cars, which save us about 5 hours of hiking. |
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| Here is a shot of the path we managed to avoid. |
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| Yeah... well I'm from this Colorado... |
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| I'm glad it was dry, these carved steps were slippery enough when dry. |
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| Rocky Nature |
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| Some daunting stairs |
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| Made it... well so far. |
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| It's pretty clear the Chinese love their metals... and their cameras |
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| This is golden lock pass. Each lock was placed by a newly wed couple, then they through the key away. the lock represents their ever lasting love. The ribbons each represent 1 persons wish... as the wind slowly unravels the ribbon the wish slowly comes true. |
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| Some of these locks are way old. |
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| Here is the "hotel" / "tea house" at Central Peak. 80 Yuan a night... We should have stayed here... |
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| Almost at the West Peak, Just in time for dinner and the sunset. |
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| Han... |
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| We ascend here for the Sunset |
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| It's a bit steep... more of a ladder than a staircase |
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| Here's the view of the Valley |
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| Sweet View |
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| Through the rock... |
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| huh... 100 Yuan... to sleep on the floor... in a hallway... packed in with four other people... |
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| The East Peak is a bit full, so this was our only option... if you look close you can see the half-eaten cucumber that was left by the last tenant... sweet |
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| Han's happy... |
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| East Peak Sunrise |
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| Early morning across the valley |
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| The East Peak... from the North Peak |
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Two weeks of teaching left, well they call it teaching but really I'll just be showing movies... sweet. I've got some cherry picking photos (exactly what they sound like) and some wedding photos (also an obvious description). So we'll see what gets posted next.
Zaijian
