Alive and Well

Note: Blogger and some other English sites are blocked at my hotel...
Finally figured out how to bypass Chinese internet firewalls via an undisclosed proxy (MIT skills FTW!)
Everything is in Chinese Dollars

Summary of Past Couple of Days:

Plane ride was pretty straightforward...once we landed in China it felt like we were part of a Bioterrorist bombing... People in full out body suits came by and scanned everyone's head with a "bar scanner," like at the supermarket, to check their body temperature for fevers. They weren't full body scanners, but rather mini ones that only scanned your forehead. If you were "fever-like," they put a thermometer under your tongue to check again. On the flight, food wasn't too bad...except the portions were tiny! I think I finished my main entree in like 5 bites...lol. (There were three meals... chicken teriyaki with rice, ramen, and a turkey sandwich). The inflight movies were ok...they played Mall Cop, Bride Wars, and the Pink Panther 2? Afterwards, we hung out in Shanghai for a bit, then we took the bus to Hangzhou. (~2-3 hour busride)

The following day, we woke up at 6AM and ate a pretty good breakfast at this family owned store. Then we went to this huge lake in Hangzhou (over a mile in circumference?), and saw so many cool things. (photos to come within a week)There was this old guy writing calligraphy with water on the ground and other people demonstrating martial arts. (Insert Video Link HERE ^^) Later, we ended up going on a boat around the lake and taking many pictures of pagodas, bridges, etc. For lunch, we ate at this super-fancy restaurant on the waterfront. (One of the dishes on the menu was $800...) Walked around for a bit more, then it started raining, so we rested at this pagoda. While there, I saw this guy who made a fishing rod from a soda can, string, and a fish hook. This guy was "pro," he would just toss in his fishing line and he would instantly get a fish... Went to dinner at some local restaurant and headed to bed at like 9-10ish.

The following day, we woke up at 5AM to check out/ prepare our luggage for our trip to the Yellow Mountain. Our tour bus was actually late, so we didn't leave until like 7?? After a four hour bus ride, we arrived at our destination... Ate at some restaurant (apparently in China, meat is way more expensive than vegetables..unlike in the US) Afterwards, we rented this taxi/ tourguide for the afternoon for $100 and went to two scenic places. The first place we went to was called Nine Dragon Waterfall, since it's comprised of nine waterfalls that look like dragons. The entire hike up and down took about two hours, but it wasn't too bad, since we took a lot of pictures. Afterwards, we went to this other place (not sure on the English name). It also had tons of waterfalls and scenic points...as well as funny English translations ^^. (See photos-> Up in a week or so- sorry) Went back, ate a decent dinner at a different location and slept at 9-10ish.

The next day, we woke up at around 8 to catch our tour up to the Yellow Mountain. The view there is awesome! We started our ascent/ climb at around 9AM by taking a cable car up. The cable cars were pretty high tech, they had air conditioning and even had solar panels. From there, we started climbing the mountain and visited lots of interesting places. (See photos :D) On the mountain, there was one hotel that charged $8888 a night...thats pretty expensive haha (we didn't stay there since we got a package/ tour deal). As we continued climbing, we saw lots of interestingly named trees and exotic fauna. In total, we ended up hiking/ climbing a linear distance of over 18km (not including climbing down and up..it was really steep at some parts!). At some points, the path was only supported by a few cement blocks...it was pretty scary since we were so far up (we were walking on air almost!). We set out at 10 and didn't reach our final destination until 730 at night. Our hotel was located roughly 1800m above sea level, so we were literally living in the clouds. It was pretty awesome seeing the wind blow and clouds pass right in front of you.