Since I last wrote here I have met up with my friend Vilma who has been studying Chinese in Wuhan. I took a bus at the end of the cruise to Wuhan & stayed with Vilma there for a couple days. I came while her university was having a cultural festival. As she is Finish, she was doing quite a bit at the festival to represent Finland. So I spent a lot of time helping out and enjoying the festival while in Wuhan. There are a large number of exchange students at the school from all over the world, but only two from Finland. The festival involved a fair for two days and than an international dance show. The fair involved each country having a stand where they displayed different things about the country and some stands sold food. There were around 60 countries represented & a large number of people came, the place was busy the entire time. I helped out with the Finish stand. So many of the Chinese thought I was Finish & wanted my autograph and photo. I really felt like a super star, taking photos with everyone and signing all of their papers. It was fun to get to know all of the other international students there & try to understand what people were asking me in Chinese when I do not know the language. The show that all of the international students put on was amazing. Each country or area of countries prepared a dance to represent their area. The students choreographed the dance and than preformed it. The dances all were looked like they could have been planed and preformed by professionals, defintely a good show! Besides the festival I enjoyed some great street food and got some more much needed rest.
After the festival Vilma, one of her Russian friends, Katenka, and myself all headed to the mountains. We came to Wudang Shan, a mountain about 5 hours away from Wuhan by train. We arrived here & struggled through the process of finding bus and train tickets for leaving here & than finding a hotel. It felt way more complicated than it ever should have been, but we were able to find a place and we think we understand how we will be able to leave tomorrow.
Today was a great day. We got up very early, before sunrise & started climbing the mountain. We have been given a few different distances, but we hiked somewhere between 9-12 kilometers. The entire way was steps. So we hiked at least 4.5kms up stairs and about 4.5kms down. Most of these were very steep. I have no idea how many steps we are talking about, but let me tell you I do not think I have ever seen this many steps in one day in my entire life! Even as we came down we would have to up and over ridges that you had to climb a couple hundred steps up and than down the other side. So many were so steep you had to hold on to the handrails.
It was an amazing view as we went up and at the top. Although, like every high and well low place here, there was a temple at the top of the mountain. I think this mountain has some importance to one of the religions here, so there is a cable car up to the top if you do not wish to climb 4.5kms of steps. I think the cable car is the more sane way to go up the mountain, as these steps for 4.5kms were tough going. After taking in all the great views and lots of walking up and down steps we decided to take some Tia Chi classes. None of us had ever done Tia Chi before and apparently the martial art style comes from the Wudang Shan area. So we called a school here and joined in for the afternoon. The only really depressing thing about this was that we had to walk up and down another huge amount of steps to sign up for the class and than to get up to where the class was held. Our legs were not so happy with the additional steps. The Tia Chi classes were good, we learned how to the Tia Chi walk and some moves. It was also quite good for us to be able to stretch after all of our walking up and down steps. Following the Tia Chi class we found a place to stay for the night and were excited to get some dinner as we had really ate nothing more than a few crackers and an orange during the whole day and our bodies were needing some food. After a good days work, a full stomach and a beer, I am off to bed. Tomorrow we will head to Xi'an to see the city there and get out and see the Terra Cotta Statues.
~Laugh & Love Life~
