China's National Holiday Unit 1.

China's got this rad National Holiday that is a week long. I'm not sure who exactly gets all the days off- but we did and it was so great to have a break.

Since we planned our trip to Xi'an our brains didn't realize how close the holiday was, so we had to settle for the trips that weren't all booked out. We were actually pretty happy that we didn't go to the huge tourist cities because it probably would have been sheer madness!

We first went to Yuntai Shan (mountain) which was not too far from our city- but the way we got there took FOREVER. The bus drivers would wait until the whole bus was full and then pick up more on the way. Since it took so long we were only able to see one part of the mountain. The place is kind of like Zion's where you have a bunch of places you can go and you take buses and stuff.

This first area was SO pretty BUT the line was hell or mordor. Straight up. I mean it was okay in the beginning when we were thinking- oh it'll be just around this corner...or this corner...but 500 corners and 2 hours later of jam packed lines and sweaty smoking Chinese people we finally reached our destination. At that point I was a major grumpa pants and didn't even want to stay and enjoy the water :[
but the pictures we got are beautiful and at least we can enjoy those :]

This area was Cornel Peak

going through the cave

We basically walked around the side of a mountain and then through it to these beautiful springs.

and waterfalls

please note the difference from our facial expressions in this picture to the one above. 

we thought it would never end. 

We later went back to our hotel room, which was actually really nice, and got some dinner. 

There was mostly street food which was delicious. 

This is a popular treat in China. Its basically peanut (really any nut) brittle. Just hot sugar mixed with nuts then these guys go to town rhythmically pounding with hammers it until it hardens.

So delicious. We devoured two bags of it. 

Pretty sure this rooster in front of an outside restaurant was like a lobster- you pick which one you want and they kill it. Just kidding- I don't know this for sure, but I got weird looks for taking pictures of this guy.

The next morning we were determined to beat the crowds and left super early to hit up another part of the park- Quanpu Gorge and Tanpu Gorge. 

steep stairs!

Tree Carvings- they look so much cooler in Chinese 

So, after we took this beautiful hike up to see the "Great Waterfall" we found that it had run dry. It drops 1,030 feet! 

Here's how I felt about it.

But we got to see a beautiful sunrise over the mountains.

No picture of it...just our beautiful sunrise-lit faces.

and this huge guy. 

scawwee!!

Heading over to the other gorge.

This was the "Y" shaped waterfall. Heh Heh

REPRESENT!!

so we get someone to take our picture...

and this guy's watching us and wanted to take a billion pictures with us. 

which is fine, I love being in other peoples pictures.

pretty and clear

funny signs- mixing up a K with a R

So this guy is a Macaque-we ended up just calling them Mokiki

He decided to come down and steal a whole sweet roll package and was really good at unwrapping them.

The Macaque entrance. SO crowded we had to climb over walls and pull each other up. I helped one Chinese lady with a good shove haha.

Then there were the little dudes that were caged. This guy's eating a cucumber

They also had performances with trained Macaques. 

We didn't take many pictures because it made us sad to see them all tied up and stuff.

We thought it would be more of a free range- come see the Mokikis and feed them food and try not to get your watch stolen.

but alas it was just a monkey show

The ride back was an adventure. We rode this bus which was jammed packed for 45 min. When we thought it couldn't hold anymore- the bus driver would stop and more people would shove it. CRAY

But a good experience.

I didn't realize how long this would be. 

So we'll continue on with Unit 2: Wuhan next time

Class dismissed. 

(lo)ve+michael