huang shan: the first post

in faith, i start to write this post, and in faith, i call this the first post. wherever you are, don't take for granted the ability to post to a blog! a couple weekends ago, i got to travel to huang shan (yellow mountain) with a friend, which is about 12 hours by really slow train from where i live. it is a beautiful place. there are so many pictures, i could post about a bunch of different things over several days, but we'll see what happens. i'll just share some pictures this time, since this is the easiest place to post them (easiest does not equal easy).

here is me on the really slow train on the way there.
we had the very top bunks in the "hard sleeper" section. that basically means there are 6 bunks to a "room," so we were sleeping up by the ceiling. and because there are three bunks on top of each other, there isn't really room to sit up! (btw, read Three Cups of Tea!! it's about a guy who used to be a mountain climber who started building schools in pakistan and afghanistan.)

when we got to the mountain, we took a cable car up so that we wouldn't spend hours walking up the mountain and then be too tired actually hike anywhere once we got up there. this place is HUGE, and there isn't all that much to see if you hike up anyway, so i've heard. and there is plenty to see once you get to the top. this is me on the cable car, feeling a bit nervous. =)
part of the cable car lines:
it was a very long ride! (about 10 minutes, going pretty fast) i've always wondered how cable cars actually work. how do they stay attached to the cable by that little tiny thing!? how do they make them balance?!

anyway, some cool rocks we saw on the way up:
more rocks:

this is a map of the entire huang shan area that you can hike around and see, just in case you didn't believe me that it's big! HUGE.
we only went to a few peaks in two days, around the middle of this map.

here are some different views from the first day we were up there, on a clear day:




it started to get misty later, pretty much right as we reached the top of what we later learned was the second highest peak.

melissa the helicopter on the top of the second highest peak:
for some reason there was a place for helicopters to land up there. (it was starting to rain, thus the poncho.)

this is me at the high point of yellow mountain the next day!!
we didn't even realize we went to the high point until later. too bad there was absolutely no view at all when we were up there--all in a cloud.

one day when we decided to try to wait for the fog to clear out a little, we went into a hotel (yes, hotels on the top of the mountain...more on that in another post) and had some tea:

yum!

and last, but not least, the holiness breakfast dishes at our hotel:
we stayed at a hotel at the bottom of the mountain, because the hotels on the top of the mountain were incredibly expensive. (100 USD per night or more, instead of 33 USD per night. funny how i think 33 USD is a pretty good hotel room price and much more than that is expensive!)