Weekend Trip to Anyang (Part I)

At the entrance to the Three Peaches Gorge, very beautiful.

My roommate is basically amazing.

Me looking terrified on the wobbly suspension bridge.

A little girl we met along the path.

Sorry for the extended hiatus. Life here has been getting busier by the day. But I am proud to report that my trip into the countryside this past weekend was a great success. It reminded me that living in a city as cosmopolitan as Beijing is really a very small serving of China. Traveling into central China helped me to remember that this is still very much a developing nation.

Going through the train station in Beijing was in itself, quite the experience. It was so crowded, I honestly couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t go three steps in any direction without being jostled by someone toting an over sized suitcase. When I shared my feelings of awe at the large crowds with my roommate she started laughing and told me that there were actually relatively few people compared to most days. This makes me never want to see what a crowded Chinese train station looks like.

The train ride was pleasant enough. Five hours really wasn’t that bad and luckily I was sitting next to good friends. However, if I had just one complaint to make about China it is that people smoke all the time and everywhere. Let’s just leave it at that. I got pretty far into Salman Rushdies’ Satanic Verses. If you are looking for something to read and are not faint of heart I would definitely suggest it, fascinating piece of literature.

We finally arrived in Anyang after dark. To hear the Chinese talk about Anyang you might think it was just a wide spot in the road. Yet somehow a city two times the size of Denver just can’t strike me that way. Apparently around here 5 million people equal an average sized city. Regardless of size, it did provide a nice base for the weekend’s festivities.

Our first day in Henan Province, we went hiking. It was fun, but let's just say the Chinese have a very different idea of safety (see scary suspension bridge of death, pictured above). It was quite a day, full of great hiking conversations in both English and Chinese, and some great emotional highs. The natural beauty and villagers with odd dialectical accents only added to the awesomeness. I think I will stop there for today. To be continued…