April 21

. I just got back to Hefei from a seven hour train ride from Huangshan Mountain. The weekend started at 7:30 at the airport, the plane tickets cost 120 RMB ($22.00 Canadian ). A group of us left, Darren, James, Jesse, (my assistant), David, a good friend and Charity.
. We arrived at the airport a four hour drive from Huangshan Mountain and were picked up by one of David's friends who drove us to a small town close to the mountain. We made some amazing stops on the way. First was an old village where some of the buildings were 1000 years old and structures called pai fang, gateways with ornate sculptures and there was some great shopping. I bought a beautiful brush and ink set in a nice wooden box.
. The next stop was a suspension bridge over the Xin An River and on the other side were incredible grottos, deep caverns dug out years ago for reasons that are unknown and even weirder is the billions of tons of rock and earth that was removed and can't be found. Later that night we arrived at a small resort village and we walked around and checked out the sites.
. Again early in the morning (6:00 am I think) we were on our way on a two hour bus ride to Huangshan Mountain. We took a skyride up to the first peak where I discovered that Huangshan Mountain isn't one mountain but several jagged peaks with a walkway to each summit and a beautiful view of the valley. You always hear about wonderful faraway places and this is one of them.

April 27

. The school had parents day for the last two day's, where they can attend class and watch the teachers teach their children, I felt like a seal doing tricks at a zoo.
. Today Jesse left to go back South to her home in the Provence of Guangdong, Last night we all had a farewell dinner at a nice restaurant. I've met Jesse's replacement, Joy who seems very nice. I hope she can speak as well as Jesse.
. I got my train tickets to Beijing today. James, Darren and I leave right after our classes are over on Tuesday.

May 8

. It's good to be back home in Hefei. Beijing was great but I felt like a country boy in a big city. Beijing is a huge metropolis city just like any other big city, expensive and the air is very polluted. There you can find almost anything that you can find back home in Vancouver. The ratio of taxis to private cars looks to be 50/50 and many people speak fluent English.
. James, Darren and I arrived Wednesday morning after a 12 hour train ride. After finding a hotel we ventured out into the city. James Darren And I walked around and did some shopping. Later that evening we went to Tian'anmen Square to see it all lit up at night.

The Summer Palace

. We took public transit out to the Summer Palace (Yiheyuan), a large lake on the outskirts of the City. The lake was a place for the emperors or empiricists to go for relaxation. A walk around a walled-in lake takes 2 hours to walk. The lakes are dotted with little boats and gazebos, also the largest gazebo in China resides here. We took a ferry shaped like a dragon from one side of the lake to the palace. The palace overlooks the lake, a large round four story building with Chinese architecture and a very colourfull and ornate covered walkway from the ferry to the entrance of the palace.

The Great wall

. Again we took public transit, an old bus that's seen better days. A bus leaves every 15 minutes and makes two stops at the Great wall and a stop at the Ming tombs. Seemed to be a good idea at the time to take public transit instead of an expensive tour. The first stop was at Badaling where we could see The Great Wall winding up and down, around and on top of the mountains.
. We then left to go to our next stop at the Great Wall. We were on our way up a steep hill when Darren, James and I, who had seats in the back of the bus noticed thick black smoke coming from the back of the bus. The bus driver stopped (in the middle of the highway) to take a look at the problem. He came back onto the bus and said something in Chinese, then there was a mad rush to get off the bus. James jumped out the back window. The bus had caught on fire! I casually walked off the bus after everyone had evacuated with my dignity. I didn't want my last few minutes of my life to be panicking and pushing to get off the bus. The bus driver flagged down another passing bus and six or seven of us got on, leaving the rest behind and we were on our way again. It was a full bus and we had to stand. The next destination was so crowded because of the holiday, we had to leave. We then tried another stop at the wall which also was crowded. After a long wait on the bus we left. The bus was now headed back. At this point after standing for almost two and half hours, all I wanted to do was go back to the hotel, but this was not to be. Down the highway apiece the bus turned off and we were now headed back. Now we found ourselves going up the same hill as the first bus had broken down, And guess what, almost where the first bus crashed and burned the bus we were on over heated and again we found ourselves stranded on the side of the highway. After the bus cooled off we were on our way again but it was all worth the trouble. We had a 2 hour stop at another spot at the Great Wall. I always wanted to run on the Great wall and I finally did.
. The bus company sent a car to pick us up and drove us to the Ming Tombs where we met up with our original tour group, who were very happy to see us. The Ming Tombs are a vast area and we only had a short stop and it was getting dark and we were tired so we didn't get the full benefit of the tombs. We did however venture into one tomb and down several flights of stairs into a tomb which looked more like a bomb shelter.

Gugong Palace (Forbidden City)