Yellow Mountain Trip

These past three days we've had off from work because of the Tomb Sweeping Festival, which is the time of year people visit the graves of their ancestors and burn paper money (fake of course) to honor the dead. The company wanted to take us to Yellow Mountain, which is a very famous mountain range in the Anhui province (and all of China for that matter) so they thought these three days would be a good time to do it. I was interested to see how this vacation would compare to the last one. I expected the hotels to be better, but I was sure to pack soap, towels, toilet paper, and other necessary things just in case. I was going to be prepared this time. However, no amount of toiletries could prepare me for what happened on Yellow Mountain. One thing is for sure, I learned a lot about Chinese culture on this trip.

The first thing I learned is that Mr. Li does not consider his wife his equal. The people going on the trip were: Mr. Li and Mrs. Li, Mrs. Zheng (head of HR), Anna (HR), Sophie (Adam's translator) and me and Adam. When we got picked up, it was just Mr. and Mrs. Li in the van, but Mrs. Li was sitting behind him, not next to him. Adam and I got into the van and headed for the very back so we could sit next to each other. But just a little while down the road, Mr. Li told Adam to come up front. The MEN had to be at the front of the van, apparently. Whatever. We picked up the other people and started on a long journey. Huainan is at the very top of the province right under Huaibei, Yellow Mountain (Huangshan) is at the very bottom (Huang means "yellow", Shan means "mountain").

We first stopped at a hotel somewhat near Yellow Mountain where the company plans on holding a special board meeting. We checked out their conference rooms, then had lunch. After lunch, we drove a little more, then all of a sudden, we stopped and picked up this guy on the side of the road. I was like, "Oh my god, we're picking up a hitch hiker, are you kidding me?" The thing was, the van was already full. Four people had to squish into the back seat in order to make room for this guy so it didn't make sense to pick him up just to be nice. Well, it turns out he was a tour guide. The first place we stopped was this cool bridge:

There were a lot of wasps buzzing around it so we didn't stay long. Then after that we went to Hong Cun, a very famous old village that has turned into a tourist attraction.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was filmed in Anhui and the opening scene of the movie features this bridge:

And I walked on it! This place was pretty cool because it was not restored. All the wood and stones and stuff were original and it's hundreds of years old.

Here's Adam in front of the front door of the richest people's house. There's another white guy in the background.

We also witnessed a guy torturing a koi fish right in the alley. First he slammed it against the ground twice to stun it, then he began descaling it while it was still alive. Couldn't get a picture, but it was pretty crazy.

That night we had dinner at a restaurant on Tunxi Old Street, which is a street filled with souvenir shops.

And now I have to talk about Mrs. Zheng. She is one tough customer. If I were in the service industry, I would not want to see her walk into my shop or restaurant. First of all, she was great with helping us buy souvenirs since we don't know how to bargain. We bought a couple of things on this street and we got them for a great price. And when they started boxing them up, she complained that the boxes were dirty so they started brushing them off. Haha. Well at dinner, she's one of those people who will send back the food if it isn't right. There was this dish of corn and sweet potatoes that she made them re-cook. I'll agree the corn wasn't very good, but I think it was the corn's fault, not the way they cooked it. When the second round came in, it tasted the same. She tried to contest the bill, but the restaurant lady was stubborn. So much drama. We stayed at a decent hotel that night, although the beds were very hard. And the next morning we had to be ready to go by 6:30am.

Even though we got to the bottom of Yellow Mountain pretty early, there were already hoards of people there. We had to stand in line for a bus that would take us a little bit of the way up the mountain. After that, there would be another line to get on the cablecar. When I say "line", though, I actually mean mosh pit. Because that is what a Chinese line is like. Everyone squishes up against everyone else and tries to elbow their way to the front. This is one bit of Chinese culture that I simply can not embrace. Here are a couple pictures of the mob:

Waiting in a line like that isn't so bad when it's just 20 minutes or so. It probably took us a half hour to get on the bus. But then we had to go get in line for the cablecar. We waited for about 15 minutes and then to my horror, we saw this sign:

I just about died. I don't even wait that long for amusement park rides, which are way more fun, in my opinion, than sightseeing. I'm ok with waiting maybe one and a half hours if the ride is really awesome. But even then, it's America, where when you stand in line, you're not crammed up against a bunch of people. You can lean on the railings, you can bend your legs, stretch your back, eat a snack! I don't think I've ever missed America more than when we were in that line. But we weren't NOT going to do it. This mountain was what we came all the way down here for. So I just became a very irritable, whiney person. Adam can attest to that. I just can't believe how Chinese people think this is an acceptable way to act. One of the first things an American child learns when they get to school is "no pushing or shoving". And we actually almost witnessed a fight over who pushed who so they must find it annoying too. But they still do it! Agh! Well, we finally got on the cablecar at 1:00pm. Here's the view from the air:

When we got to the mountain, Sophie told us that there would probably be a similar line with a similar waiting period when we wanted to go back down. I was pretty much seething at that point, but I tried to enjoy the view:

Here's a sad picture of a beautiful mountain being overrun by people:

Adam went to take a picture of the Welcoming Pine tree. He stepped over a bench, thinking there would be ground on the other side but there wasn't. So he caught himself on the railing and his face slammed into the camera, giving him a bloody nose. Here is the picture that Adam bled for:

There were several places that we could have hiked to but I said I was done. First I had to use the restroom, which is another horrible place to go when there are lot's of people around. Everyone crams into the bathroom (with only three stalls) with no regard for who was there first. I finally got in one, but then when I was done, the people were so tightly packed I had to force my way out. I got my toes stepped on which pissed me off even more. I consider myself lucky that the line to get back on the cablecar was only an hour and a half. Here's a nice pic from the air going down:

That night we had dinner with our tour guide and the food was incredible. I have fallen in love with bamboo shoots. And we actually got back to the hotel at a reasonable hour so we could sleeeeeep. The next morning we started off at 8:30am and we went to this place. I don't know the name of it, I don't even care. I was so burnt out at that point. All I know is, it was a beautiful mountain area with clean water that you could drink from... and they were turning it into this fake, half-assed tourist attraction. I guarantee you the water won't be clean a few years from now. It was disappointingly fake. The minority people they hired to put on this show were wearing grass skirts that looked like they came from a dollar store. Seriously? Here are some pics:

We did get to go on a zipline, though, so it was worth it just for that. We finally starting driving home, and we picked up Smudgie from the housekeeper's house on our way home. He is exhausted, as am I.