This weekend we had a three day weekend for the traditional Chinese holiday called 清明节(tomb sweeping festival), and we decided to do something different. We decided to travel together with some of Hui's family members who live in Jiaxing, which is a city 20 minutes away from Haining. They are both teachers, and were traveling with a lot of other teachers and their children, so the two of us joined a pretty big group.
What a fun time we had! The places we went were in the vicinity of a city called 上虞(shangyu), and were also near 宁波(ningbo). To me, it was basically a rugged mountain climbing, child friendly, adventure. The car ride there was really fun with all the ups and downs. It's not true what they say. Chinese people are really good drivers. If they weren't they wouldn't be able to drive up a mountain in fog so thick you can't see your hand in front of your face (which was exactly how it was driving to simingshan). When we arrived I was just happy to get out of the car. The ride up was quite beautiful, but we were in traffic for a long time.
Its true, the weather was a little bit dreary, but I am always happy to spend time with Hui's friends and family, because they don't treat me like an object (literally, some Chinese talk about me like I'm an animal in the zoo, but I don't want to rant about that right now). Again, I have to say that, when you go to a mountain as beautiful and tall as this one, even if you take pictures, other people are not going to understand how beautiful it is. You really have to just go there and experience it yourself. I feel like the pictures I took this time were pretty good though, I think you guys will like it even more when I get the pictures we took on Hui's iPhone 6. Yes, these days we are using our smartphones to take pictures, because they actually take better quality pictures than my camera does. Boo! Hui said we can buy a big expensive camera after we have kids though, so I'm looking forward to that.
When we arrived, we took a little rest and ate lunch. The mountain where we were staying is called 覆卮山 (fuzhishan). It definitely isn't famous, which I can tell because it took me forever to find the characters, and they weren't automatic.The lunch was great, everything was great. After that we went to climb that mountain, and it was real legit mountain climbing, which I have never done before, so I fell on my face and skinned my knee a little bit (also very fun!). We walked around on top of the mountain, and people were taking pictures standing on the edge of rocks, which I totally was not feeling brave enough to do after hurting my knee, but I'm sure it would have been fine if I did, because the little children were doing it too. You'll just have to settle for a picture of Hui doing it after I get his pictures. We did take a group photo as well, which I am totally going to try my best to get. I guess this blog is mostly just me talking about the trip, and the photos will have to come later. I did snap one while we were up at the peak and a few while we were on the way up.
I think its kind of interesting that the trees high up in the mountains are all kind of slanted to match the mountain. They aren't all like that. When we were driving I saw some bamboo trees that were slanted, and some that were just sticking straight up. It was very interesting.
After climbing the mountain, we took a break and let the kids participate in the strange sport of 滑草(grass skating). I don't know if this is a Chinese thing or what, but sliding on grass? Oh well, whatever floats your boat. Anyway, the children had lots of fun doing this, and they played there until it started to rain. At that point we all went back to the cabin to play majiang, and Hui lost some money, and it was blah. Its ok though, because I had great luck the next day when we played again later (but that one wasn't for money). If you understand majiang rules, Hui and I were playing together, and we got three bao twice in a row. It seems like I have the best luck ever!
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| 滑草 |
After breakfast we left fuzhishan and headed to another mountain called 四明山(simingshan). As soon as we got on the mountain, the road was covered by a thick fog. I was a little bit scared, but not really. It was mainly just cool. Hui kept talking about how it was great weather for vampires, but I told him there was no way it would be good for vampires, because vampires are not scary. I think that kind of weather is much better suited for zombies, therefore during the evening when everyone was inside the place where we were staying playing majiang, we went out and did a zombie photo shoot. Unfortunately those are all on Hui's phone, so you will see them later.
I haven't mentioned the food very much, because I didn't really take any food pictures, but the food was awesome. The place we were staying was very remote, so we got to eat countryside style food, which was awesome awesome awesome. You may not know this, but I always say to eat the best food in China, you absolutely have to go to the countryside. Though, if you happen to be a vegetarian there will be nothing for you to eat, because all the food in cooked in pig fat oil (but that just makes it infinitely more delicious). My favorite thing I ate all weekend was this spicy rabbit, which had a really great spicy flavor. I feel like rabbit basically tastes the same as duck except for rabbits have less bones.
I really liked the second place we stayed. It was just a really big house made up like a hotel, and there was a big living room on the first floor. We got one of the rooms in the basement, so it was a little bit cold, but it was still awesome. The whole place was run by a couple and their son. It gave me a really nice feeling staying there. Anyway, I'm going to close this blog out with a few pictures of the looming fog and call it a blog well done. See you next time!
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| My camera could see more than my eyes. It was worse than this. |
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| That's Hui if you were wondering |
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| just some place we stopped at on the road to have a look, I think it was a hotel |
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