China 7 months: The Hike

As I was eating my boiled eggs on Sunday morning with Ori and Tom. Tom is a 20 year old from a town not to far from Middleborough and is going to be, in my opinion a "double hard bastard". Rollend (interpreter) comes to our table and asked in an excited voice "do you want to go for a hike". We all said yes, packed some supplies and off we went. The hike was to the Kunyu Shan National Park. Just walking to the national park was a worth while experiencing simply because the beauty of the surroundings. There is usually a charge for visiting the park but students from the academy get in free. This is an attempt to encourage foreigners over and turn the park into a tourist attraction which I feel will only lead to the downfall of this wonderful area.

Soon as we entered the park it was amazingly tranquil and stunning. I'm a city boy so was in awe of the place. Rollend mentioned that we are going to the highest peak in Yantai and we have to go up some stairs to get there. But before that there is about 1.5-2hr walk which was fine by me.

We walked past mountains, rivers, lakes and waterfalls and just chatted and took photos. It was an extremely hot and I started to feel a little sun burnt already. My ancestry is Irish so i'm not really built for the Sun. We checked out some cave like structures. It was fantastic. About 2hrs later we played around on a rope bridge which was by the steps.

Now you know what a potential "double hard bastard" looks like

The road to paradise

About an hour into the steps which seemed to go on forever and reminded me of the steps in Ace Ventura 2, we had sweat pouring off us all, except strangely energetic Rollend.

We passed a well and Rollend drops to the floor and fills his empty bottle with the well water which the local animals probably think twice about drinking. He jumps up and explains the virtues of the water whilst I, Ori, Tom and the Chinese around us look at him in amazement.

The steps that go on forever

The Chinese seem very friendly. As we were walking up uttering "ni hao" to all the Chinese they respond by smiling and repeating, some even spoke a little English and say "hello".

Love these views

We took a much needed quick break to admire the view. We were by a cliff edge over looking the mountains and forest. It was truly fantastic, utterly re energized me and strangely brought a tear to my eye. I almost felt like jumping straight off the mountain into the forest below.

Rollend said we are ½ way, we all thought he was joking but he was not. We stopped found a space by a tree and had lunch which consisted of cookies, nuts and dumplings. It was actually quite nice. After that we all jumped on a rock which was right on the cliff edge and again admired the sights and sounds.

About an hour later we had reached the peak, 923metres above sea level. The whole journey was worth it. We stood on top on what looked like an abandoned building. Tom, Ori and I and began performing chi kung. "Frigging quality" or as Tom would say "sound as".




Going down was so much easier then going up. On the way down Rollend literally started picking buds off a tree and eating them. I tried them they were ok, not great. We actually got back to the academy in about two hours. We had left at 8.45am and arrived back at 5.45pm. The whole experience was totally exhilarating.


I love that park.