In my two weeks of sightseeing before hitting the books, pretty much my only requirement was climbing a mountain. Any mountain. I'd settle for a large hill with stairs.
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| Satisfactory |
Huangshan is not a large hill with steps. Rather, it's a massive mountain range with 1000 meter high peaks of badass granite, marvelous sunsets over oceans of clouds, opportunities to achieve enlightenment (see buddha's light). And stairs. "The most beautiful mountain in China" has also inspired a fair bit of art.
Needless to say I'm quite excited. That said, planning has been a little sad on my part. The dad has booked flights and a hotel (I think), and it's looking to be a 3 day trip. In addition to that, there's the matter of which paths to climb and which to take a lift, the famous sunrise at 4:40 - 5:10 AM, and a ton of peaks and pine trees with weird names. It'll also be freezing cold at the top, which is a problem since the other 95% of this summer is going to be sweltering.
We'll see how it goes (this summer's motto). Staring at all this booking information in Chinese is reminding me that I should review my characters (汉字) and maybe pick up some traditional Chinese literacy as well. Thankfully, there's an app for reading Chinese on your computer by MDBG which I have not used yet. Here's hoping Google Maps will be workable for Beijing, since that is seriously the only reason I don't get lost when I leave home. There's a Baidu maps as well (in the likely event Google maps is blocked in China). Chrome translates most of the all Chinese interface quite nicely.
-E.L.K
*designation a quote from the dad
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