The Yellow Mountain used to be called the Black Mountain about 2,000 years ago (all stories in China have magnitudes of years on those in America) because the water flowing over the rocks stained the cliff faces dark. During the stand dynasty, though, the name was change to honor the Yellow Emperor, the father of China. He bathed in the hot springs and ascended to heaven, not to die but to enjoy the eternal youth he had obtained from the springs. Today, the mountain boasts rocky outcroppings with fantastical names like "Begin to Believe Peak" and "Grand Canyon of the Western Sea". It also possesses the Five Wonders, pine trees (the type on the mountain "stretches its branches as though welcoming guests", rocks, a sea of clouds (after the rain), hot springs (those of the bathing Yellow Emperor), and snow. With this scene set by our guides, we began to ascend the mountain on our buses. We passed through a dense bamboo forest as we wound our way up the hill. We reached a cable car station that transported us 8 at a time in swaying gondolas up at least another thousand feet. From there, we hiked along the massive range, looking down through the beautiful valleys created by the curving rows of mountains. Perhaps most surprisingly, there was very little rock to be seen. To add to the many colors assigned to these mountains, they were a lush, full green. Well-watered and enjoying the full warmth of the sun, the browns and grays of the underlying ground were masked by the competing greenery. Trees sprung up from cracks in the rock, tiny flat spaces, even seemingly from the uninterrupted rock faces. Hiking was wonderful. The paths were paved to ensure steady footholds, the sun was shining, and the temperature hung between 60 and 70 degrees. A perfect day for scaling a mountain.
We hiked for about an hour and ended up at a luxury hotel atop one of the mountains. It looked directly into a long crevice flanked by mountains, and watching the rock faces fall off into oblivion was either awe- or vertigo-inducing, depending on the person. While I felt guilty for eating at a hotel supplied by the porters (men or occasionally women who are paid to carry literally every supply three hours up the mountain to the hotel) who we had seen struggling along the mountain, it was the only option and the food was delicious. There was nearly a riot over the sweet and sour pork, which was a huge relief to the Glee Clubbers who were just craving some American favorites or, at the very least, something familiar and not too adventurous.
In the words of one of our Glee Club songs, "A porter's life is hard".
We had a second leg of our hike after lunch, this time on a more challenging section of trail that included steeper rises and falls and closer brushes with the cliff edge. It was beautiful, but provided similar views to the previous section. Still, it was wonderful to walk through the park and soak up the beauty around us.
As afternoon settled into evening, we wandered on Old Street in downtown Xiuning. A traditional marketplace that had been mostly overrun by tourism but boasted a few stalwarts, it reminded me a lot of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Except without the semi-themed blocks, the Catalan street signs, or the length. Old Street (perhaps it has a different name, but that is how our guides referred to it) has shops selling both kitschy and traditional foods, crafts, and souvenir. On a single block, you can buy a traditional gelatinous rice treat (like unflavored, unsweetened mochi), a Chinese ink stone the size of a car, and a series of cheap fans with hastily painted designs. You can sit down and sample various teas, from black teas full of body to slightly grassy green teas (Maofung is highly regarded but I didn't particularly like it) to famous chrysanthemum teas. A group of us tried them all, and many people swore it was the most effective sales technique they had seen in China. My two favorite stores were a postcard store that sold postcards and journals and had its walls covered with postcards bearing handwritten notes. The journals had particularly interesting designs, from an Obama journal that said "Serve the People" and had him wearing a Soviet Communist outfit to a series of journals for people born in various decades that were oddly telling (see the second row of books in the photo).
My other favorite store was the apothecary. Unlike the other stores, it was a sleek dark cave of 150-year old wood paneling.
Dinner was a fun affair of sampling. One highlight was the shizitou, or lion's head, which are giant (GIANT) meatballs and which I had learned about in Chinese class. It's funny what the mind hangs on to years later. There was also a sort of baklava-looking dish using tofu skin wrappers that had an odd chewy consistency. The majority of the other dishes were similar to those that we had tried before.
To end the day, we schlepped to the airport for our flight to Beijing. It had been a long day with and early start, and it would have a late end. Though we had been assured that as a small airport, Xiuning Airport did not require an early arrival, they were ill-equipped to handle the arrival of 80 people. The computers dated from at least the 1990s. Security was a single grumbling machine that was barely manned (and though they searched my bag, it was not my test tubes filled with shampoo or my dried American fruit that caused concern but my perfectly-sized contact solution tucked away in my sealed quart bag). The concession stand past security sold unground coffee beans and little else. We ended up putting all the bags under 2 people's names and still the inefficiency delayed the flight. But I slept the whole journey and we landed in Beijing without issue.
Spotted: I am not well-built for a life without washing machines, it seems. Though I successfully laundered my dirty clothes in the sink upon arrival in Beijing, I scrubbed hard enough to leave blisters on my fingers. But at least I smell okay.
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