China - Huangshan, Anhui

After that Silk Factory visitation in Suzhou, our group went directly to Huangshan by bus.  It took around 5 hours excluding stops.  A little about Huangshan, the city is located in Anhui Province in eastern China.  Huangshan attracts a lot of visitors because it is very famous with the mountain scenic area and it's also one of the reason I want to visit China.  I stayed for 2 nights in Huangshan city, but we arrived at Huangshan in the late afternoon.  It'd be better to spend full 3 days at least in this city and I will tell you the reason soon.  So, in the menu for Huangshan, we had Tunxi Old Street, Huangshan National Park, and Bamboo Charcoal Shop, all in 2 days, the third day was not counted, because we left after breakfast.  Our first visitation, Tunxi Old Street...

1.  Tunxi Old Street  

Tunxi Old Street or Tunxi Ancient Street is a shopping street with old architecture and shops, very much different from Guangqian Street in Suzhou.  There are many souvenirs shops, street food, and restaurants along the street.  A nice place to shop, to dine, to take pictures or just to stroll the street.  It is also said that this street has been a setting for more than 100 movies. Woah!

Tunxi Old Street was a merchant area. The structures date from the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) eras. The style of architecture is called the Anhui style or Huizhou (鰴州) architecture. The look of these structures is similar to that of the Hongcun merchant houses. It is the best-preserved section of Huangshan City. - chinahighlights.com

We were given 1.5 hours to explore this place, but oh well, everybody was tired and we all finished in just 1 hour.  We tried some street food here, I didn't want to say it didn't taste good, it tasted a bit unusual, so I thought my tongue needed some adjustment with the food here :p Many shops here, again you have to be good in bargaining, if you want a good reasonable price for any items you want, many shops are more expensive than those in Suzhou. I don't post any pictures here, but you can find them on my instagram, soon :p

2.  Huangshan Mountain (Yellow Mountain)

There are many remarkable mountains in China, Huangshan is one the most famous in Anhui Province, China.  The name literally means Yellow Mountain, but it's not because of the color of the mountain, but because the area was named after the Yellow Emperor (Huang Di) in 747 AD, and also because of many people wear yellow raincoat when visiting the mountain.  Yes, raincoat because Huangshan Mountain has high chance of rainfall.  It has a humid sub-tropical monsoon climate.  The weather is characterized by cloud and fog with heavy humidity, jut like many other mountains in China.

After getting off of the cable car, a lot of of steps down, a lot of steps up later

Huangshan Mountain is so legendary with its unique scenic beauty that UNESCO listed the site as a World heritage in 1990.  Before I went here, I already googled the picture and I knew it'd be amazing, the landscape was so breath-taking.  Those are the picture of mountains in seas of cloud. like those in the paintings.

Xu Xiake, a noted Chinese geologist in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), who visited the Yellow Mountains twice, left his praise in this quote:

• You don't need to see any more mountains after seeing 'the Five Mountains', and you don't need to see the other four mountains after seeing Huangshan . - chinahighlights.com

The Local Guide had informed us though, that this day would be rainy, and she told us to buy the raincoat.  Oh rain, how could I take good shots if it's raining?! I did hope that she was wrong, but oh well.  And also, she did tell us, that the temperature in the mountain wouldn't be much different from the city, but it was actually 10 degrees C below the temperature in the city!!! It was 0-5 degrees up there at the top of the mountain!  It is much different! Known it'd be that cold, I'd have worn more layers of clothes :(

It's a bit mystical

That raincoat! haha! I look like I'm wearing garbage bag in yellow

Anyways, to get to the mountain, we had to take small bus, then to get to the top by cable car.  It was already raining, even before we got on to the small bus.  We got here at 10 a.m. because we were scheduled to have lunch up there at the Hotel.  When I got off the cable car, I rushed to the outside, but guess what?! It was foggy, misty, whitey, I could see barely nothing!  If it weren't that misty, we could've seen The Jade Screen Tower, The Lion Forest (some trees that looks like a lion), The Beginning-to-Believe Peak, The Flower Showering Valley, and The Pine Valley.  I couldn't tell which one is which because of the heavy mist that day, well, I did spot a lot of Pine Trees though.

It's supposed to look like this with no mist! Took the picture from e.ahta.com.cn

One thing about Huangshan, the road, the stairs was better than the Great Wall; it looks way safer and more comfortable with wide steps.  Although there a lot of steps to the top, I didn't feel that tired, compared to those steep incline at the Great Wall.  But still, visitors should be careful, because it's rainy, the steps can be slippery.

So, the visitation was over after we had lunch, then we went back to the cable car station.  While we were in the cable car going down, I noticed that the mist was disappearing, it's not foggy anymore, it's clear! I could see the mountains, I could see the cliff! Shit! What a misfortune!  Many people, well, everybody in our group was upset, they protested to the local guide, wondered why we couldn't stay longer, some demanded to go back up to the mountain. And again, it is how it is when you purchased a tour package, everything has already been organized, scheduled and you can't violate that, you can't just swap it.  We couldn't go back that time, because of course not only we had to buy the new ticket, but we already have another visitation on the schedule today.  It's such a misfortune, I chose this package because of Yellow Mountain, but oh well, maybe I just have visit it again one day.

See! The fog is disappearing!

3.  Bamboo Charcoal Shop

I believe this was everyone least favorite visitation of the day, especially after what happened in Huangshan Mountain.  So, China is famous with their Bamboo, right? I know Panda eats it.  But this shop sells so many items that are made from Bamboo.  The store's name is Bamboo Elite and as many shops in this tour, we had the sales explained to us about the products and I admit the presentation was good, because many people ended up buying many things from this shop, including my parents.  This shop is actually interesting, they have wide range of products from Clothing, Kitchen, Bathroom stuffs, Bedding, and they also have some snack (which aren't made from Bamboo however).

This shop marked the last visitation in Huangshan, tomorrow after breakfast, we checked out of the Hotel and went to Huangzhou.