Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Holiday in Hengyang

This national holiday, we had a 7 day span of no classes. It sounds great, right? It's a little bit confusing actually since before and after the holiday we have about 8 days of teaching class on either side, but that's not the point of this blog. For 2 days during this holiday, a friend and 2 of her friends came to visit Hengyang. We met first at the base of Mount Hengshan, a famous mountain that is located about 50 minutes away from Hengyang. After the hike / ride, we returned to Hengyang and just hung out. We had a great time hiking the mountain, chatting, playing dutch blitz, and taking pictures.
This is the road leading to the entrance of Mount Nanyue (Hengshan). Originally, I was excited to just be in nature without being surrounded by people. I quickly realized that this would not be the case on this national holiday when everyone and their dog is traveling.

Powering up with a little McDonald's before the hike.


Friends Withy and Kuan (and Pamela--not pictured) are all students in Changsha studying Chinese or studying for their masters in a Chinese program.

Jenn and I in front of the entrance to Martyr's Shrine. We had just hiked for about 1.5 hours and were getting ready to take the mini bus the rest of the way.
We are heading to the island in Hengyang. 3 kuai buys you a round trip boat ticket.

We had some fun playing with the color settings on the camera. This is an old, abandoned home(?). A lot of the buildings on the island were made of brick, a resource that's not commonly used on buildings in Hengyang.
Farmers on the island. Visiting the island is a little bit like stepping back in time a few decades. I love the feeling of it. Finally, we were able to be alone in nature without crowds of people.

Go West young man.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The sights are beautiful with all of the green trees. Some of them appear to be tropical.