Spatrachina Volume Nine

Me Fully Prepared

A cold morning I woke up to. My eyes were opened at the stroke of 3am in the morning. Gosh, it was so difficult to pull oneself outta the bed in a chilling environment! But for the sake of the sunrise over HuangShan, I must get up. Me being a cold-adverse person, I put on countless layers of clothings. hmmm.. 1 long sleve and 1 short sleve t shirt, 1 wollen sweater, 1 pullover, and 1 red overcoat provided by the hotel. Oh, not forgetting my scarf and gym gloves. I dont look too bad with that much layering hor? :P


We went out to really early, guess we were amongst the 1st few to set out to see the sunrise. We didnt take the longer route that would lead us to the sun rising over the horizon. However, we secured a peaceful little location that will afford us to see the sun rise behind some spectacular mountians. There at 4.45am we waited. The sky was ink black cept for the bluish orange colour over the horizon. The moon and the stars were still shining in all their fury. It wasnt very cold. Or perhaps I was really well prepared for the event. :P it took a long time for the sun to finally brighten the sky from black to darkish blue. By then, there were already 15 more people behind us. The sky continued to brighten, but still no sight of the sun. I guess those at the horizon viewing area were already making they way back to the hotel. But good things awaits for those who waits. The sun finally started to splinter the mountains with its orange glares. And then within a couple of minutes, the sun burst over the mountains, soaking everything in its path with bright orange lights. Everyone became excited and were frantically snapping the scene with their cameras. It was definitely the most beautiful 2 hours of my HuangShan trip!

At the break of Dawn

At a Pavilion

We returned to our rooms after the sun was out of reach of the mountains. There in our rooms, we stole a small nap before waking up to pack our stuff and commence our trek back to the foot of HuangShan. We were feeling really good. After a tough trek up, we thought that going down would be a breeze. WE WERE WRONG!! First of all, the weather had been fantastic. So fantastic the sky was clear blue, with the sun hitting on everyone directly. So wearing layers of clothes was a wrong choice for us. 2nd, the trek to the foot consist of an upward trek that took us another 1 hour! Gosh, my legs were still wobbly from the previous day's trek. In the end, we were taking off our outter clothings again, and began to sweat like crazy as before. The only plus point: the beautiful views of the mountain ranges. We saw the YunHai, which simply means clouds so dense they looked like sea amongst the mountians. YunHai had made the whole HuangShan so magical it looked like heaven.

Clear Blue Skies

Distant YunHai

YunHai

YiXianTian

More YunHai

After a tedious upwards trek, we finally reached the place where the downwards slope commenced. And what a relief it was! Our tummies were already tumbling with acidic jucies, and going downhill would consume lesser energy and also helped to get to our lunches faster. We reach this mountian station where there was toilet facilities and an eatry. Funny thing was, I had so much water along the way but no urges for the toilet. Guessed I might have sweated all my body fluid out! Anyway, time for lunch. 40RMB per person for rice plus 3 dishes. It's actually ridiculously expensive in Chinese standards, but for us, our tummies were more important. All the dishes tasted wonderful as we chomped down the hot meal. With our tummies filled, we were back with more energy to continue our descend to the cable car station.

Lunch area

My Lunch

The view just got better as we descend HuangShan. However, our legs also got weaker with each step we made. Seems like the lunch didnt really help restore the much needed energy. Finally after 3 and half hours of trekking, we reached the Cable Car Station!!.. So relieved! If we were to continue hiking down to the foot, it would take us another 6 hours!! But a nice 30min cablecar ride got us to the foot, and thereafter, we boarded our bus to Hangzhou.

Jeremy too tired climbing the stairs!

Cable car station

In the cable car

Red Autumn leaves with green Bamboo

The Bus journey took us 3 hours. We managed to meet up with Linan and her finance at the train station for a light dinner of KFC. I had this Peking duck sauce chicken handroll, which tasted rather unique. But the meal came with hot orange juice!! Oh the horrible medicine tasting liquid again.. Well, luckily this time it was in a smaller cup. We bade Linan and her finance farewell before we board our train back to Shanghai. We managed to catch the last subway service back to the apartment. What a trip it was to Hangzhou and Huangshan!! So much physical activites we had! Definitely the most memorable leg of the entire trip!

At Hangzhou Train Station with Linan and Finance

The Shanghai Subway