Guanxi

Saturday the rain kept coming down and although many of my friends were sad that we were walking in a cloud all day and couldn't see very far, it was beautiful, and a perfect contrast from the day before. We were walking in a cloud...you don't get to do that everyday. We got up early to make it to the door of the Grand Canyon which they apparently close early if you are walking in a cloud.

We hiked down into the canyon along walkways that were sticking strait out of the wall and the cloud cleared periodically sometimes cloaking us in mystery and silence, sometimes breaking to show the shear walls along which we were walking. At one point we saw a cloud running like a river up a valley cut in the shear rock across us. Fall leaves of read and yellow poked brilliant colors out of the mist.

At noon we went back to the hotel picked up our stuff and they left for home while I waited for Susanah and Javier to meet me. We were planning on hiking around then camping under the stars in a secret grove of trees that we were sure we could find, but it was still raining and they showed up just as wet and tired as I was. So plan B, find somewhere else to sleep... The only dry place on top of the mountain was inside one of the hotels so we hiked up to the second floor hallway of a hotel and decided to dry off rest and figure out how to stay in the hotel. Rooms on top of the mountain cost around a thousand Chinese dollars which is way more than you should pay for anything that isn't imported... so ethically that was out of the question.

After a little while of sitting on nice soft chairs in the hallway we decided that the best place to stay would be right there, in the hallway. Yep that is right, we wanted to sleep in the hallway of a 5 star hotel on top of a mountain. But how to do it. The answer is Guanxi. A couple hours later we were best friends with the Guard who checked us in and told his coworkers that we would be sleeping there for the night. We slept soundly and left early the next morning.

It made me realize one that even the most outrageous idea can work out if you are respectful and give go forward with it. It also made me realize the importance of treating people well and not becoming a free loader.

The next morning we hiked down the mountain as the clouds blew away and the sun came out revealing gorgeous vistas, freshly touched with rain.

We got to the bottom of the mountain hungry, cold and incredibly happy.

At the bottom we found Javier's company car parked where it had been left and drove into the small town of 汤口 where we found steamy soup filled dumplings, hundun, and youtiao which we ate in an open walled shop while we looked out at the still misty morning, happy and content.

Three hours later I made it back in time for the last 30 minutes of church, and felt incredibly grateful for the opportunity to go to a church lead by the Savior through his priesthood.

Pictures for Yellow Mountain Chinese Baptism

The Yellow Mountain-Chinese Baptism

Friday morning I awoke to the quiet footsteps of workers carrying bamboo poles with huge bags of heaviness swinging pack and forth on either end as they trek up the mountain past my hiding/camping spot, I quietly role up my sleeping bag and eat some breakfast as I hear the first tour groups approaching the gate that I walked around last night. As I walk out of the woods onto the trail leading towards..., well I really don't know, but it goes up... I run into a group of four people also going up the trail. One waves at me and another hits them on the shoulder, telling them that I just came out of the woods cause I was going to the bathroom... this actually was true, but not the only reason. As they politely ignored me I followed them up the trail trying to figure out what language they were speaking. Turns out the Shanghai dialect sounds quite like Japanese.

A couple minutes later I started talking to them and began a conversation which would end up lasting for the whole day and into the next!

I wasn't going to meet my friends until noon the next day so the invited me to join them.

Hiking with Chinese people is different that hiking with anyone I have hiked with before. The first thing that you do is eat 黄瓜 or cucumbers, then we hiked more.

My new found friends had never hiked a mountain before in their lives, they road the train and elavators to work in Shanghai and then decided to go hike a mountain!

The rest of the day was gorgeous, clear blue skies, clouds floating somewhere below us like an ocean with mountaintops poking through like breaching whales.

We hiked all day sharing raisens, chinese dried meat and soysauce eggs. Lots of people took my picture and I did a photo shot with a pack of giggling college girls from Chengdu, my new friends were great starting to answer questions for me. Yes he speaks Chinese and is wearing a big backpack. It was really nice to be protected from having to answer the same questions over and over again. They even started to try to collect money for me from people who wanted to take pictures of me. Along the way we ran into a bunch of people that they met on their bus ride the day before.

That night it started to rain and my tent was in America so they insisted that I stay in their hotel room with them. They had arranged a room with 5 beds and only had for people but when we got there it turned out that one of the beds was built for three...there were two couples and me...I camped on the floor in my sleeping bag. It was really fun to joke around with them and the first time that i have ever camped on the floor of a mountain top hotel room.
I will attach some pictures above.

The Yellow Mountain-Solo Start

My only Friday without a class was swiftly approaching. Weeks ago that I would take off on Thursday night and spend my long weekend exploring China. Little did I know that I would end up sleeping on the floor of a mountain top hotel room with four Chinese friends I had meet only hours before. After spending the last couple of days riding my little Chinese bike across the city looking for hiking shoes and other camping supplies that fit my American Body, finding a sleeping bag, pad and shoes for reasonable prices I crammed them together with peanut butter, Chinese breads, raisens, banna chips some sausages and headed off Thursday morning's writing class. In one pocket I had a one way ticket to Huangshan which was either taking me to a city or a mountain the ticket agent wasn't really sure. In my other pocket I had a treasure map drawn by the Leopord, a friend from the climbing gym that lived on Huangshan for a couple of months. My goal was to find my way to a little city called soups mouth 汤口 then following the map walk out the main gate and up an unmarked trail in the dark avoiding the ticketed trails that had been closed for the night and accessing the Chinese "backcountry". After arriving in Soup's mouth in the dark I ate some soup and started asking around for the Paifang that should lead me to a stream and a trail eventually taking me off the beaten track. A really nice man and his wife were out for a walk and walked me up to the road that I could take to a place where there was a trail going up the mountain but encouraged me to walk along the mainroad and go up the main path like everyone else. I started off on the little path praying and thinking about what the best decision would be, as I walked through the dark and my flashlight flickered and I realized that I had long ago decided to be careful about solo trips and decided that I should be in a place where I could get help if I needed it so when the trail came to the main road I walked along the main road planning on finding the trail and exploring it the next day in the sun or maybe the following day when Sussanah and Javier showed up. As I walked I looked for the secret trail and enjoyed the quiet of the night.
Eventually I arrived at Ciguangge 慈光阁，I still hadn't seen the trail and all I had was a little treasure map without many details so I decided to explore a little and look for a place to sleep, the main gate was locked but I found a side trail that led up through the woods overlooking a complex of old houses turned tourist attractions. In the dark I could here the noises of people getting ready for bed as I walked through what could be their back yard. Finding a small flat section of wood with piles of rocks and a couple of sedan chairs I squezzed my shoulders into my small sleeping bag and staired up at the stars through the bamboo greatful for the clear skies both for the view and because my tent was still in America.

The Yellow Mountain- Chinese Baptism and The Yellow Mountain- Its Cold Outside will follow shortly.

For the Love of Skippy

I like China and Chinese food has been treating me very well for the last month...but something has been missing hiking small mountains my legs have felt strong and my lungs feel good but I feel tired. I knew something was missing but I couldn't figure out what it was. Firguring it was something to do with my diet I tried eating differint things, more meat, soy milk little tiny mushrooms China had it all. Eating different food helped but alas I was still without power and then I found the answer.......(Sorry Brad you might not want to read this)......the answer was peanut butter!

Look Ma no hands!

After Yangshuo I went to Liuzhou to visit Fan's family and learn how to make some Chinese food. Fan had told them that I love to exercise and like to swim, so they got her uncle to take me swimming in the river that wraps around their city. I put on my slightly loose board shorts hoped they would stay on, shook hands with Uncle and jumped in the water. As we swam out across and up the river to a huge bridge I realized that I had never swam in a huge river with waves and boats before. As we swam up river small waves would crash over my head and sometimes into my stomach, not directly, through my mouth, making my wonder about what it would be like to have giardia on the 27 hour trip back to Nanjing the next day. I decided that it wouldn't be much fun but stopping swimming wasn't really an option. Stopping swimming means sinking and the river bank was a long way away, plus Chinese people keep telling me that I look like feier pusa, Phelps. Since I had an image to keep up I decided swam my heart out and had a wonderful time. Swimming in rivers is addicting and now every river time I see I wonder if I could swim across it.


On a side note I am home now and the train ride went smoothly. Apparently the river is clean or the Giardia is afraid of people that look like Feierpusa.

Truth be told I didn't think about Phelps until just now but I did think of all of the crazy waters mom swims across, and then just relaxed into the water.

Deep Water....SOLO and Swimming in a big river with waves

I have wanted to come climbing in Yangshuo since I first heard about the Karst Mountains in Guilin about four years ago. Yesterday that dream became a reality, today was more than a dream come true!

As Susannah and I took off looking for a place to climb today we remembered a place that we had bouldered the day before and a place we had seem some other climbers. The climbers recomended some deep water soloing but from our vantage point the place looked a little dirty and we were a little worried about parasites.

Yesterday's bouldering on an unmarked wall next to a small farm road had wetted our apetites and a morning of hiking with Jialiang (Anthony) and Dainian (Daniel) had made us start dreaming of cool water.

At a climbing guide store the rumors of deep water soloing were confirmed so we mounted our dear little pink "Alice"

town crusers headed off into the afternoon.

Riding down city streets strait backed and feeling like Mary poppins soon gave way to rock filled country roads that took us to some stairs hidden between two restruants. As we decended the stairs we eyed a couple of widely spaced rocks that lead around the corner of the cliff.

Nearby some people on bamboo rafts watched...

I hoped that some of the kids would come over and let us use their rafts as a floating base. I packed my electronic dictionary and passport in plastic bags and twisted the tops as well as I could then we stood on a sunlite rock and tried to figure out how we were going to change into our swiming suits. After deciding that mooning the river traffic might not be that bad of an idea we noticed some men heading our way on a bamboo raft. The were dressed nicely with button shirts and shiny leather shoes.

After paddling over and asking our permission they began to play pocker on our rock. They happily let us use their raft and we (feeling like my boyhood hero Huck Finn) paddled around the corner to take turns changing in a small cave with a hand towl to protect the river folk from viewing more than intended.

Now feeling like a fantasy from a climbing magazine we took turns controling the raft while the other climbed, all the while our excited Chinese hosts cheered us on and played pocker. After a while Susanah, asked if that was my back pack in the water. Looking over I confirmed that it was indeed my backpack floating down the river and we scrambled to reach it before it, my passport and everything else that I didn't want stollen from our hotel room decided to stop floating and dissappear.

We soon discovered that bamboo rafts are not speed boats and also are not extremely manuaverable, at least not in our novice hands. After a diving save of the back back we returned to shore and were greeted by a flock of 8, 12 year old, Chinese boys swiming down the river to meet us.

In a tender mercy the double layer of bags had fully protected my valuables, wich if lost would have been worth every penny!

The pictures will follow when my flash drive starts communicating with my computer.