I don’t know where to start. It was simply gorgeous! The city is known for its Osmanthis trees which happened to be in full bloom while we were there which made the whole place smell like perfume. Which made for a rude awakening when we loaded back on to the crowded bus for Shenzhen and realized that it too had a distinctive smell, garbage!
So the bus miraculously makes the 12 hour trip in 9 hours so we get there about 8 am which was an awesome surprise. Luckily, the hotel let us check in early and leave our bags at the hotel while we went in search for the only thing that would make it worth walking around in public after only 6 hours of sleep on a bus; McDonald’s breakfast! It was a long walk but even in my morning funk, I have to be excited about the beautiful scenery. Every block there would a clearing through all the large buildings and you would see the wild mountains in the distance. There was an amazing breeze that made it about 20 degrees cooler than the blistering heat in Shenzhen I have grown accustom to. For the first time in China, I got chilly. But what a welcome change!
After a taste of home we decide to explore for awhile giving the hotel time to set up our room before we get back to our much needed NAP! It was a crazy assortment of random stores. Imagine an American designer clothing store next to a cartoon keychain store and then a fancy tea room. But somehow it worked! So while we are walk this man walks up to us and introduces himself in perfect English. He asks us where we are from and how long we are staying. I love the look on people’s faces when I say I am from Shenzhen! So we cautiously answer all his questions vaguely until he tells us he is a travel agent and he can give us better prices than the hotel tours. So it turns out he had a little show down the street and was literally charging about haft what we had been quoted at the hotel. He immediately sprung into action informing us there was too much to do for a 5 day trip and we needed to get started now! There were 3 places that he could take us to right now! Heidi was a lot more enthusiastic about forgoing the nap and shower that I had planned for the day.
After a little convincing and my favorite sales pitch, “pretty girl, pretty price!” tour-guide Colin won me over. He drove us back to the hotel, shocked at how far we had walked (I am told Chinese people have short legs and walk slowly so my 20 minute walk is an hour in China terms and too far for rich foreigners!). I change quickly and throw all my things on the bed trying not to lay down and let myself be tempted! So Colin tells us all the foreign tourists go to this small cave far away but there is a better one only the Chinese tourists know about and that is where we want to go; Chuanshan. I guess I am spoiled by living so close to Luray caverns, because I was underwhelmed. However there where many differences, they turned it into a light show switching from green, red and blue lighting rather than the natural white lighting in US caverns. Also me and Heidi kept gasping every time the Chinese people rubbed all over the stalactites! You get in so much trouble in the US! They say that the oil from people’s hands make them stop growing and you are killing the continued creation! For “Communist China” it sure seems like the people do whatever the heck they want! Climbing on the walls for pictures and touching EVERYTHING! But the strangest part was when they lined us up to stand on this rock and pour water into one of the pools in the cavern to, “feed the fish.” Yes that’s right, the Chinese put goldfish in the natural cavern pools.
So the cavern is under this “Elephant Mountain”. Crazy but true is looks like an elephant with a huge eye whole called “moons crest”. Of course we had to get our money’s worth and climb up the easy looking path around and up the mountain. However, once you decided to go up the steady incline path disappears and its these wobbly steep rocks that are supposta act as stairs. I almost lost my McDonalds Breakfast but man was it worth it! They had picnic tables in the elephant’s eye! The breeze was intense, which felt amazing after the climb. So after Colin laughing at the million pictures we took from every possible view, no doubt seeing through my plan to put off the trek back down. So without missing a beat Colin is naming off all the fun things we should do the whole way down the mountain, apparently not an issue for him!
I am not sure how but we decided on the Solitary Beauty Peak, which turned out to be another mountain! So its in this gated palace estate which is now a college. But you walk through all these beautiful gardens and tour the Chengyun Palace and then Resting Palace. All the buildings are this royal yellow with red roofs. We miss read the map and walked into a bathroom thinking it was going to be a museum. But in my defense all the buildings looked the same! So in the back of the estate is a random mountain peak. Not like the US Mountains that are triangle shaped this thing just literally went straight up. There was a spiral staircase around the mountain, or the China version which is of course narrow rocks with nothing keeping you from falling off the side of the mountain but a thin chain. The fun part was when the mobs of people would try to come down on the narrow stairs when there are millions of people behind and in front of you and there is no way to get out of the way! Then people would look up and see too blonds and stop right there in our faces with no one around us able to move, that was fun. When we got to the top there was guards that stop you and only let so many people go up to the very top at a time. She didn’t seem to care for me because there was a little temple and she wouldn’t let me go in. She didn’t say anything just put her little flag in my face and pointed me to keep walking by. However everyone else liked us and there are now a million pictures of me pointing to people as they take my picture. I told one guy to take another one bc I was making a horrible face which turn into a fun paparazzi moment. The view was again amazing. You can’t describe it, we were both shocked to see a huge cross on what must have been a cathedral, but we couldn’t find it from the ground. Below the peak was the Crescent Pond. There was a cute little panda sculpture that we decided to take pictures with and then discovered it was a trash can after a group of Chinese people circled around us pointing and laughing, oops. The cutest thing was a little boy sitting on the wall of the lake with his grandma. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying, but the boy was just soo happy and had the cutest little squeak/ laugh. We sat on a bench and watched them, the Grandma kissing the boy on the forehead or rubbing his back as he bounced around and threw bread crumbs to the fish in the pond.
The next night, Heidi fell in love with another family. We found a little restaurant in an ally off the main street. The parents were running the restaurant while their 2 elementary school age boys ran circles around the Grandpa. The oldest boy pooped his head right in between me and my bowl of noodles and said, “HELLO!” In the US I probably would have rolled my eyes and stared down the parents for not watching their kid, but for some reason in China I LOVE IT! I asked his name and how old he was, I could tell he understood but was too shy to answer back even after his father came behind him and encouraged him to practice his English. It was so adorable the way he disappeared into the safety of his dad’s leg, all the while with a huge smile! Heidi couldn’t stop staring at the Grandpa, to the point that I got embarrassed and had to drag her away, lol. She kept thinking how old and wise he must be, frustrated that she couldn’t talk to him and learn his life story. Another magic moment was when the boys climbed into their dads lap and ran through English flashcards. I had never seen 2 kids so excited to study a foreign language, but they were just so happy to spend as much time as they could with their dad between customers. And the father no matter how busy he was with his work was doing everything he could to teach his children. Investing everything he had into their future in hopes of giving them opportunities to live an easier life than him. Or at least that’s the story I got from his eyes.
So the bus miraculously makes the 12 hour trip in 9 hours so we get there about 8 am which was an awesome surprise. Luckily, the hotel let us check in early and leave our bags at the hotel while we went in search for the only thing that would make it worth walking around in public after only 6 hours of sleep on a bus; McDonald’s breakfast! It was a long walk but even in my morning funk, I have to be excited about the beautiful scenery. Every block there would a clearing through all the large buildings and you would see the wild mountains in the distance. There was an amazing breeze that made it about 20 degrees cooler than the blistering heat in Shenzhen I have grown accustom to. For the first time in China, I got chilly. But what a welcome change!
After a taste of home we decide to explore for awhile giving the hotel time to set up our room before we get back to our much needed NAP! It was a crazy assortment of random stores. Imagine an American designer clothing store next to a cartoon keychain store and then a fancy tea room. But somehow it worked! So while we are walk this man walks up to us and introduces himself in perfect English. He asks us where we are from and how long we are staying. I love the look on people’s faces when I say I am from Shenzhen! So we cautiously answer all his questions vaguely until he tells us he is a travel agent and he can give us better prices than the hotel tours. So it turns out he had a little show down the street and was literally charging about haft what we had been quoted at the hotel. He immediately sprung into action informing us there was too much to do for a 5 day trip and we needed to get started now! There were 3 places that he could take us to right now! Heidi was a lot more enthusiastic about forgoing the nap and shower that I had planned for the day.
After a little convincing and my favorite sales pitch, “pretty girl, pretty price!” tour-guide Colin won me over. He drove us back to the hotel, shocked at how far we had walked (I am told Chinese people have short legs and walk slowly so my 20 minute walk is an hour in China terms and too far for rich foreigners!). I change quickly and throw all my things on the bed trying not to lay down and let myself be tempted! So Colin tells us all the foreign tourists go to this small cave far away but there is a better one only the Chinese tourists know about and that is where we want to go; Chuanshan. I guess I am spoiled by living so close to Luray caverns, because I was underwhelmed. However there where many differences, they turned it into a light show switching from green, red and blue lighting rather than the natural white lighting in US caverns. Also me and Heidi kept gasping every time the Chinese people rubbed all over the stalactites! You get in so much trouble in the US! They say that the oil from people’s hands make them stop growing and you are killing the continued creation! For “Communist China” it sure seems like the people do whatever the heck they want! Climbing on the walls for pictures and touching EVERYTHING! But the strangest part was when they lined us up to stand on this rock and pour water into one of the pools in the cavern to, “feed the fish.” Yes that’s right, the Chinese put goldfish in the natural cavern pools.
So the cavern is under this “Elephant Mountain”. Crazy but true is looks like an elephant with a huge eye whole called “moons crest”. Of course we had to get our money’s worth and climb up the easy looking path around and up the mountain. However, once you decided to go up the steady incline path disappears and its these wobbly steep rocks that are supposta act as stairs. I almost lost my McDonalds Breakfast but man was it worth it! They had picnic tables in the elephant’s eye! The breeze was intense, which felt amazing after the climb. So after Colin laughing at the million pictures we took from every possible view, no doubt seeing through my plan to put off the trek back down. So without missing a beat Colin is naming off all the fun things we should do the whole way down the mountain, apparently not an issue for him!
I am not sure how but we decided on the Solitary Beauty Peak, which turned out to be another mountain! So its in this gated palace estate which is now a college. But you walk through all these beautiful gardens and tour the Chengyun Palace and then Resting Palace. All the buildings are this royal yellow with red roofs. We miss read the map and walked into a bathroom thinking it was going to be a museum. But in my defense all the buildings looked the same! So in the back of the estate is a random mountain peak. Not like the US Mountains that are triangle shaped this thing just literally went straight up. There was a spiral staircase around the mountain, or the China version which is of course narrow rocks with nothing keeping you from falling off the side of the mountain but a thin chain. The fun part was when the mobs of people would try to come down on the narrow stairs when there are millions of people behind and in front of you and there is no way to get out of the way! Then people would look up and see too blonds and stop right there in our faces with no one around us able to move, that was fun. When we got to the top there was guards that stop you and only let so many people go up to the very top at a time. She didn’t seem to care for me because there was a little temple and she wouldn’t let me go in. She didn’t say anything just put her little flag in my face and pointed me to keep walking by. However everyone else liked us and there are now a million pictures of me pointing to people as they take my picture. I told one guy to take another one bc I was making a horrible face which turn into a fun paparazzi moment. The view was again amazing. You can’t describe it, we were both shocked to see a huge cross on what must have been a cathedral, but we couldn’t find it from the ground. Below the peak was the Crescent Pond. There was a cute little panda sculpture that we decided to take pictures with and then discovered it was a trash can after a group of Chinese people circled around us pointing and laughing, oops. The cutest thing was a little boy sitting on the wall of the lake with his grandma. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying, but the boy was just soo happy and had the cutest little squeak/ laugh. We sat on a bench and watched them, the Grandma kissing the boy on the forehead or rubbing his back as he bounced around and threw bread crumbs to the fish in the pond.
The next night, Heidi fell in love with another family. We found a little restaurant in an ally off the main street. The parents were running the restaurant while their 2 elementary school age boys ran circles around the Grandpa. The oldest boy pooped his head right in between me and my bowl of noodles and said, “HELLO!” In the US I probably would have rolled my eyes and stared down the parents for not watching their kid, but for some reason in China I LOVE IT! I asked his name and how old he was, I could tell he understood but was too shy to answer back even after his father came behind him and encouraged him to practice his English. It was so adorable the way he disappeared into the safety of his dad’s leg, all the while with a huge smile! Heidi couldn’t stop staring at the Grandpa, to the point that I got embarrassed and had to drag her away, lol. She kept thinking how old and wise he must be, frustrated that she couldn’t talk to him and learn his life story. Another magic moment was when the boys climbed into their dads lap and ran through English flashcards. I had never seen 2 kids so excited to study a foreign language, but they were just so happy to spend as much time as they could with their dad between customers. And the father no matter how busy he was with his work was doing everything he could to teach his children. Investing everything he had into their future in hopes of giving them opportunities to live an easier life than him. Or at least that’s the story I got from his eyes.
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