Mountain climbing

I taught in the school that put my name up in lights again on a saturday and the woman who introduced me, happy, invited me and chris to go mountain climbing on the sunday, we accepted and so early in the morning two cars, one with another chinese speaking family in and one with happy, her husband and her child who all speak English.

I was in the chinese speaking families car, and they were lovely.

We chatted all the way to the mountain, an hour or so away, got out and climbed for an hour up the mountain beside a river and some small reservoirs.  The local story was that before the reservoir there was often huge draughts in the area, and one year they were so desperate they sacrificed a dog in front of the temple. 

After the sacrifice a huge flood came, and washed away all the houses except one.

Now they have reservoirs here, so the need to dog sacrificing is significantly reduced, and the dogs are much happier!

We stopped on the path at the crossing over a steam and they prepared some tasty noodles and nian gao rice cake over an open fire. 

It was fun playing around in the stream, (and getting wet socks and shoes in the process) and playing with bb, their son.

After that we climbed for another hour, for once without steps or a clear path, up to the top of the mountain and past a few more reservoirs. 

At the top they are building a huge road and observation station from which to 'observe the ferns' in their natural habitat. very odd.

The whole day the chinese people were obsessed with finding, collecting and eating wild raspberries, at one point spending nearly an hour foraging in random bushes for them! madness!

On the mountain top there were some cool tea fields, chris posed for a nice picture, i however couldn't resist the silly picture, (in waist high bushes).

We eventually climbed down in the evening, very tired and ready for an early bed!