Everybody's Got a Water Buffalo
Tuesday was full of rain and fun. This is the day we went up the Yellow Mountain and America beat China.
Our day started with all of us on the bus with Raymond heading toward the Yellow Mountains. The scenery was amazing. We saw all kinds of things. There were water buffalo everywhere. Crops of all kinds were being tended to. We went through a lot of tunnels where Will felt the need to hold his breath. We finally got to the point where we were actually headed up the mountain. We zig-zagged along taking sharp turns at 60 miles an hour.
We stopped at one of the hotels in the mountains to eat lunch. Again, buffet style, we ate very little of the unknown dishes that were being served. By now, we are pretty much ready for home food. After we ate lunch, we were standing outside, and we saw the cable cars we were going to be riding. That sight freaked some people out, but we knew that it was going to be worth it. We went up the mountain a little farther in the bus, then we let the hikers out. The four boys braved the rocks as they went up the trail from where the bus was to the hotel. The rest of us took the cable car most of the way up, and then walked the rest of the trail to the hotel.
As we were heading up, there were many breathtaking moments as mountain peaks kept revealing themselves from the clouds. There was a prediction of rain, but we kept drinking in the amazing sights of the sun-touched peaks. About half-way up the trail to the hotel, it did start raining. We took shelter underneath trees and little mushroom shade areas until it slacked off. After walking a little bit more, the bottom fell out, and we found a little store and stood under its awning. When we saw it was misting, we walked the rest of the way to the hotel. I don't think we thought about it being cold up in the mountains, because we all were in shorts and tank tops with no real warm clothes. Not to worry though, because in each of our rooms there were 2 big red goose-down jackets that were huge on all of us.
It didn't take the boys as long as we thought it would. They got there about an hour after we did. Andrew saw some people playing basketball on the court right in front of the hotel and decided he wanted to join in. Well, they wanted to play a little pick-up game, so Andrew (shirtless) and Will began playing. Now, our boys are pretty big boys and these little Chinese guys were...well...little...so, Andrew and Will were doing well. Ed subbed in for Will, then the Chinese guys saw that Tyler and Will were sitting right there. They wanted to play 4 on 4. This was possibly my most favorite part of the trip. Four really tall Americans playing 4 really small Chinese. They had a lot of players to sub in and our boys had just finished climbing the mountain, but they still kicked butt. The crowd was unbelievable. People who were walking by simply stopped for 30 minutes to watch a pick up game.
Another group of Chinese students who were walking through the area saw what was going on and wanted in on the action. Somehow when the boys were telling the one person who spoke English that they wanted water first, she thought they wanted to play for water. So, after our boys won that game, too, the girl brought the boys 4 waters, then wanted to take a picture with them. Our boys were exhausted because they played for about and hour and a half not too long after walking all the way up the mountain.
We had seen a sign for karaoke, but after we found out we had to pay 100 yuan each, we decided that going to bed early was a better idea. We were all planning on getting up at 5 to see the sunrise. If we are going to be up on the top of the world, we might as well see the sun from here, too.
Miss y'all!
Ashley
