A large pond sits in front of the walled village. There is a stone walkway and bridge leading to the front gate. Inside, the village is comprised of stone buildings separated by narrow alleyways. Yellow Mountain is a popular tourist destination for both Chinese and other nationals. Along with our group were several other groups, usually consisting of at least a dozen people per group. The groups usually had a leader carrying a pennant and guiding the group with a small microphone and a portable amplifier. The group members typically wore either matching hats or matching T-shirts. The alleyways were lined with shops selling all sorts of souvenirs.
This shop was selling scarves and had apparently hung out a duck along with the merchandise.
We also toured an ink factory where we saw a demonstration of how traditional Chinese ink sticks were made. The ink was made from soot collected from burning a certain kind of oil. Bowls set over the fire collected the resulting soot. The soot was then processed into ink. In the factory, a woman was hand-carving a mold for the ink sticks. A man would take lumps of ink and pound them with a wooden mallet. He would then pull off balls of ink, weigh them, and then place the balls into a rectangular mold and press it into place with the lid. The ink in the molds would then be set aside to air-dry. Once dry, the ink sticks would be knocked out of the molds and sold. The person using the ink would usually have a flat, shallow dish -- oftentimes carved from a special stone -- with a bit of water. The ink stick would be moistened and then the ink slowly drawn in circles around the dish to dissolve the ink. This process of dissolving the ink was considered meditative and important for collecting one's thoughts about the calligraphy or sketches one was about to do.
The next day we drove to the base of Yellow Mountain and took a cable car to the top. At the base of the mountain were feathery bamboo forests. At the top, were weathered pine trees. We checked into one of the hotels on top of the mountain and hiked around the trails. A typical Chinese landscape ink painting oftentimes depicts tall, dramatically spiky mountains. You don't really understand or appreciate those paintings until you see Yellow Mountain. The mountains are granite. Geological processes have transformed them into striking pillars. Many of the peaks have oddly vivid, interesting names, like "Beginning to Believe Peak" (a monk had heard about the famed beauty of Yellow Mountain and only when he saw it for himself did he 'begin to believe'), ''Eighteen Arhats Facing the South Sea'',"Immortal Sunning His Boot'', ''Squirrel Skipping to Celestial Capital'', ''Golden Cock Crowing Towards the Heavenly Gate", '' Monkey Gazing at the Sea'', and the list goes on. There are over 70 peaks contained in this region.
This particular peak is "Monkey Looking at the Sea". On the top of the peak is a rock that resembles the back of a monkey as it is looking out.
People snap locks onto the chain barriers, many of which are engraved with names or initials and a date.
The locks represent everlasting love. Once locked, the key is tossed into the gorge (though I'm not sure if keys are even sold with these locks since they are sold to be fastened onto the chain).
We walked to a part of the park called the Grand Canyon, named after the American Grand Canyon (really, this is what our Chinese guide told us). This part of the park had no crowds -- even here, in the great outdoors, we ran into several tour groups like the ones we met at Hongcun -- and we enjoyed having a bit of peace to ourselves. The park had a nice series of trails and stairways with railings cast to resemble tree bark.
This is one of the stairways build along the side of the mountain.
The following morning, we woke at 4:15 to watch the sun rise. When the weather cooperates, the sunrise is supposed to be spectacular. We wore warm coats provided by the hotel and joined many, many other people to find a lookout point to watch the sunrise. Even at that hour, we heard tour leaders guiding their groups with the microphones -- not something I cherish listening to at 5AM. We found a good spot to wait and were shortly joined by about 40 other people, none of which were the least bit quiet. One man starting crowing.
Here is a pre-dawn picture of the mountains. The weather was not cooperative and it was grey and overcast. The sunset was weak. I think I should have stayed in bed. The entire thing would have been improved by a set of noise-cancelling headphones and a thermos of hot chocolate.
Later that day, we went to Emerald Valley, another location for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The water was an amazing turquoise from natural copper deposits.
While there, Eric was 'attacked' by a praying mantis. Ask him how loudly he was shrieking for me to 'get it off!'
It felt so good to get out Shanghai and
