Guangming Hotel Weinan

13 May 2009 (Wednesday) - Day 6: Depart from Xi'an to Mt. Huashan (2-3 hour ride) Hua Shan (2 Days - 13-14 May 2009): 13 May 2009 (Wednesday) - Day 6: Arrive Mt. Huashan, start climbing, Stay at the top. An overnight visit to Hua Shan, one of China's sacred Taoist mountains, provides some great hikes and amazing views. Hotel (1 Night) in HuaShan:

... resting a bit of a ways back. We decided to keep on going and to call them at the next rest stop. They only continued to get further and further behind and before long we just said we would meet them at the top. The hike is basically made of stairs honestly carved into the rock. I have to give credit to the poor souls who carved the thing. I wonder how many workers put how many hours into making that monster stair case. The path only had a few treacherous places and was ...

On Simon's arrival we headed out of town for a couple of days to climb a nearby holy mountain called Hua Shan. We headed out mid afternoon, planning to get to the summit before dark and then stay in a hostel up there. We arrived to find a tourist nightmare, with taxi drivers and hawkers contantly hassling us as we made our way to the park entrance. We paid our entry charge and got on the bus that takes you to the eastern steps. Then disaster ...

... came out saying they were an interesting experience - dans sounded like most of the time it was either seriously painful or extremely ticklish, mine was often pretty painful too! I have to say it wasn't a very relaxing experience, though my feet did feel pretty great afterwards!!! Anyway, later Jasmine did appear with our tickets with my name spelt correctly! Unfortunately we did have to purchase a new one for me, but this still meant we only paid 60pounds each - not exactly a ...

... which was a very quaint old chinese town. its a world heritage site and is really pretty apart from the pollution and greyness. we wondered round for two days, its rather touristy, and we froze as its 7 degrees or less. i even had to resort to socks and sandals. the shame. we booked our bus tickets back to xi'an and are told we'll have to go up to the highway to get the bus. no worries, it seems logical to us now, though three other european girls were not trusting this staff ...

... fact that during most rides in China, an extremely noisy Kong-Fu movies are screened. The movies, which looks very similar to each other, usually showes the good hero, on his own, where many bad people attack him one by one. Expectedly, he kicks every warrior or punch him somehow, and - of course - always win. After a movie or two I thought that it was much more efficient for the bad warriors to attack him together. Even the best warrior in ...

About 45 minutes out of Xian lies one of the most important discoveries in the last 40 years. In 1974, the site was founded by local farmers who were drilling a well. There was no history of this tomb because all records from this time were destroyed. The reason being the first unifying emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, was a ruthless tyrant and it was under his rule the tombs were created and the Great Wall was begun. After his ...

Being invited to a local Mountain park by my work colleages was a nice suprise. A dusty morning with poor visablity made the views pointless, but luckly the sun can out and the dust cleared. The only problem was every man and his dog decided to also visit will huge crowds all want to get up the mountain!!!!

... to explain to him that no one there spoke English and I'd like to be able to look around a bit more and not just make models but it obviously didn't get through. Not only was I shoved out the car but Tim was sent in to - presumably so I could give him the tour I never got. I retreated to my dark shed and found my first attempts had mysteriously disappeared - so I sat down with my molds and started to make more. The clay wasn't as nice - drier with more hard bits - so they were ...

... it didn't need the 'The' and that usually '-ware' is used for cutlery. Then it was on to a detailed discussion of how we could phrase 'The jade pendant with openwork and design of teeth' a little better. By lunch time I was quite tired and didn't feel up to scrutiny so sat alone to avoid the well meaning comments about whether I'd like a spoon and did I not like Chinese food - I'd managed to cut lunch down to one plate of vegetables which were very nice and something I could ...