May Day Holiday 3 - Yellow Mountain and a Chinese Opera

Our first view of Yellow Mountain.  Rather magnificent!

We had to be on the bus at 5:30 a.m., so the dining room opened early for us to have breakfast.  I have to tell you about the Chinese breakfast.  As we walked in the door, the greeter would hand you a warm hard-boiled egg.  Then, you grab a small 6-inch plate and greet the first dish, fried rice.  The next dish is usually a vegetable, ours was a black fungus.  After that was a noodle soup, then steamed pumpkin slices.  There was also steamed bread and some sponge cake muffins.  Off to the other side was what Eva said were “pickles.”  Since the Chinese pickles are usually of a spicy hot nature, I try to avoid them.  Then there is also the option of tea or warm soy milk, watery soy milk.  I tolerated the breakfasts, but the sponge cake muffins I could have eaten all day!

The bus ride to the Yellow Mountains (Huangshan) took about an hour.  We hurried off the bus to get in line for the cable car ride up to the middle of the mountain. It was a two hour wait in line.  It moved slowly, but there were a LOT of people.  The guide had planned to leave an hour later until he got messages from other friends who were guides that some of the people that arrived later had to wait three hours in line for the cable car.

We are almost to the cable car and this was what the line looked like all the time that we were waiting in line!  And the people just kept coming!

The cable car ride is one of the longest in the world according to Eva.  It was a fun ride and the view was fantastic!  

Views from the cable car.

Another view as we went up.

This view was looking from the other side of the cable car.

I knew the mountain was going to be a lot of hiking, and I knew my knee wouldn’t handle it.  I had told Eva, I would just stay at the hotel or find a shady spot somewhere to read a book.  She talked to the guide, and it turned out that there were several others who were not going to be able to do the full hike, so I decided to go to where those people were going to be and stay with them.  When the guide was organizing who was going to stay, and who was going to go, he indicates that David shouldn’t go either.  David was a little shocked, because he had planned to, but the guide knew the mountain.  We kept looking at where the people were going to be, and it was some really steep stairs going almost straight up, cut into the side of the mountain!  He decided to follow the guide’s advice and stayed with me and the other three women.  

We had been led to believe that there was an area up there that we would be able to walk around on.  It turned out that the area was not all that big.  There was a restaurant that had a buffet dinner for 140 RMB per person!  There was a small cafe that served a lunch for 50 RMB and then several vendors that sold ice cream (yes, ice cream!), baoze, fruits, and veggies and some other traditional Chinese foods.  Then there was an area that you could walk around or sit on several benches.  It was all out in the sun.  If there was a place in the shade, it was already taken, every inch of it! (Maybe I should say centimeters?)  

Stopped for a breather during the climb up.

Almost to the waiting area.  

We found a place to sit that gave us a rock to lean back against, and we sat there for quite some time.  We had old and young people come up and try to talk with us and some to take our pictures with.  One young family with a daughter that was seven and spoke English fairly well talk to us for some time.  While we were talking, two young girls about the same age as her, came to ask for our picture, but didn’t know the English for it, so they were asking in Chinese. The seven-year old girl next to us told us what they were asking, so we all scooted together for a photo.  

David is standing near what they call the "welcoming tree."  They say that the trees branches reach out to welcome you.  It is a lovely looking evergreen.

This rock is know as the "Elephant's trunk."  It looks like the elephant is raising its trunk in the air.

After being in the area for three hours, the guide finally said we could go down.  After climbing over 400 steps to get up there, we now had to take about the same number of steps to get down to the cable car.  

Here is part of the waiting area.  Lots of people!  The display in the background shows the mountain in different seasons.  People will climb this rock all year long.  The guide said that during the winter, the workers will be out early in the morning clearing any snow from the steps of the trail so that it is ready to go at 6 a.m.!

The black sign says, "No climbing on cliff," but everyone has to have their photo taken of themselves on the rock!

I'm not sure how well you can see it, but it was the best shot I could get of him.  The man in the green vest is carry boxes and paper to be recycled back down the mountain.  He has a bamboo stick over his shoulder and balances the two ends with what ever he is carrying.   I saw several men doing this with different goods on the end of the bamboo.

Then we had a two hour wait for all the others in our group who had hiked the mountain to climb down.  Our guide took us to a store where there were several massage chairs, and we sat there and dozed for a little while.  David went out and walked back and forth.  When the group got down off the cable car, our guide took us to the reception center to wait for them to get down by bus to where we were.  I was feeling very sunburned, because I hadn’t thought about sunscreen at all until I was up there on the top with none to use.  I was very sorry for it later.

Starting the hike down the mountain.  It was cool to be able to go though this little tunnel in the rock.

After the bus ride back to Huangshan, we had dinner.  The night before, some of our group had gone to a Chinese opera show, but we didn’t want to go, because of how late it would be and how early we needed to get up the next day.  David still wanted to go see it that evening, so they asked the guide, if there were tickets available for the show on Friday night.  They had three tickets!  I was too exhausted to go and I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it, because of how tired I was, so David, Eva and Pang went.  They really enjoyed it.

Video of the drum song at the opera show.

Video of the rain storm at the opera show.

Meanwhile, I got a shower to cool some of the heat of my sunburn, wrote part of the blog and got everything ready to go to sleep.  David didn’t get home until about 9:30, but before he was totally ready for bed, I was asleep.