There is one mountain high enough… XingLongShan!

Holy mole!

I got my schedule for the week and noticed that Sunday indicated we were going to ‘tour’ XingLong Mountain. Okay, that sounds easy enough – maybe we would get to see some hills, walk a few trails, and breath in the fresh air. Wishful thinking… Touring the mountain actually means climbing the mountain up and down the steepest stairs/trails I have seen in my life. Our tour guide Andrew starts the talk by telling us that XingLong Mountain is 2,600 meters high – I do not understand when they talk in ‘meters’ and ‘kilometers’ and those measurements that the rest of the world uses, but 2,000 of anything sounded like a LOT!

We arrive at the mountain and start to climb. The first 100 meters are fine, but then the walking doesn’t stop. We keep climbing and climbing and climbing and CLIMBING! I look ahead and see nothing but more stairs. The good thing is that every so often we would have a rest stop at a “Temple” (Please pardon my overuse of quotes – they usually indicate a misrepresentation of the word by the Chinese). At each temple they have loud inspiration techno music to encourage you to keep climbing (I would have preferred Eye of the Tiger). You start to hear the music about 300 meters away without realizing that 300 meters is actually quite far. Also at the temple they sell food, drinks, and, chairs. At these temples you are charged for sitting, touching, looking at, breathing, singing, sweating, drinking, or eating anything – quite a business!

Needless to say, the scenery was beautiful, just like straight out of a seen of Twilight. Fresh air, tall pine trees, but no Edwards or werewolves. Finally, after about an hour and a half I made it to the top of Mount XingLong and man was I happy. You are happy for about ten seconds and then you realize – Wait! How the heck do I get down? More walking of course! That’s when the real pain started. My legs were shaking, feet aching, and toes trembling - just to describe a few of my symptoms. FINALLY, I made it back down the hill only to discover that we still had to visit a museum for another two hours! I tried my best to keep everyone is good spirits (one of my jobs as class leader) by singing “The wheels of the bus” and “Old McDonald!” It was fun for me and everyone played along for the first few seconds (then they decided that I was to hype for just having climbed a mountain). Made it home late, had some pizza, and good night Lanzhou!