After last night's festivities, we all woke up early to a wonderful breakfast before starting our journey to Huangshan, The Yellow Mountain. We were all quite sad to leave the comforts of the village guesthouse, but still excited for the day's adventure. On the way over to the mountain we stopped at an ancient Ink making factory. This factory was founded during the Qing Dynasty, and is well known for its high quality ink. In China, calligraphy is a highly esteemed art and a tradition that has been preserved within the culture. We were given a quick tour of the factory and even got to watch a demonstration on how the ink is transformed into a solid final product. Chinese calligraphy ink is a bit different from normal pen ink, it is deep black in color and is made from mostly natural ingredients. The base of the ink is made from a combination of ashes for the dark coloring, and animal gelatin to create some stickiness in the texture. High quality ink, they told us, takes months to dry and be ready for use, and so producing the ink is an art in itself.
After the ink factory, we continued our drive to the base of the mountain. Upon arriving we looked up, searching the air for this huge mountain that we were about to hike. Unfortunately, we were met with almost nothing- the heavy fog in the air completely concealed the peak of the mountain. Instead of hiking all the way up, we took a cable car up mid-mountain, and then walked the rest of the way to our hotel where we would stay for the night. Sitting in the cable car, it felt like we were slowly rising up into the clouds, and we couldn't see anything around us. After what felt like a long 15 minutes, we arrived at a spot close to the top of the mountain and began our brief, but adventurous hike. The lack of visibility was disappointing, but nevertheless, the hike was an exciting experience. We took our time slowly going up and down Huangshan's many steps through the rain and fog, stopping to look for some of its amazing natural wonders. The whole experience sort of reminded me that there is more to China than big cities or factories, it is filled with so much natural beauty. It was really nice breathing in some fresh clean air for a change too! As the storm clouds turned full strength we finally arrived at our destination. Wet and freezing, we all relished the opportunity to unwind after a strenuous day.
Tonight night we had our third discussion group meeting where we went over some of the things we've learned about China through our experiences with the host family, and our trip to Anhui. Needless to say, the journey so far has been very exhausting, so it's time to get some sleep so we can be up bright and early to hike the west side of the mountain in the morning. I hear that's the inspiration for some of the scenes in Avatar! Can't wait!
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