Hangzhou, Huangshan, and Wuyuan

Last week we had off so I went with two friends to southern(ish) China. We flew to Hangzhou, a beautiful city south of Shanghai where I was living two years ago. It was really much prettier than I remembered it. When i told this to Eunjee, she suggested it is because I am not miserable this time around. Anyway, the city is centered around West Lake, a beautiful lake with many temples and islands, where Mao once had a residence (where did Mao NOT have a residence, though, really?). There is a saying in Chinese, "above us, there is heaven; on Earth, there is Hangzhou and Suzhou" [Suzhou is another city nearby renowned for its beautiful Chinese gardens]. Pictures of the lake at sunset.

From Hangzhou, we took a five hour-bus NW to Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) in Anhui province. This is one of the most famous mountains in all of China, and as such is a major tourist attraction. Luckily it's the off-season now, and kind of cold, so we didn't run into TOO many people (just a few thousand, as opposed to about a million on the mountain all at once). We spent one day climbing ("mountain climbing" in China actually means climbing hundreds and hundreds of stairs. There is no path, just stone steps--I guess this is to keep the hordes under control; you can't just let people roam free). The we spent a night at the top and got up at about 4 am the next day to watch the sunrise. It was really incredible, except for the fact that the mountain side was FULL of people. How tranquil. Anyway, the views were awesome. After sunrise, we spent the next 6 hours descending 16 km worth of stairs. The next day I felt like I was about 100 years old, my legs hurt so much. Pictures.

From there, we next took a bus south to Jiangxi Province, to a county in the north called Wuyuan. This is a very historic area, with the villages we saw having been constructed in the Ming dynasty (~1500s-1600s). The area was at one time an extraordinarily prosperous merchant base, so most of the homes were very large and beautiful and could rightfully be called mansions. The problem now is that the area has lost its prosperity; the region relies entirely on subsistence agriculture. So actually it's a little ghostly; these huge old homes are still inhabited, but families use only a few rooms and the rest of the house is deserted or used as storage space. In addition, the residents of this area (as in many rural areas in China) are all small children and old people. Very few young people are to be seen, as they all have left to find work in the cities. So the old people raise a second generation of children, and tend the fields, and keep life going, and wait for their children's income to come in.

Some really cool things we did while there: eat alot of pumpkin; get sick from the food; ride motorcycles between the villages--funnest thing ever; see a traditional funeral, complete with corpse; and go to a psychedelic cave. Scope the pictures for proof.

We spent three days in the rural area and then took an overnight train back to BJ.