25 March 2012 Trip to E’ Mei Mountain (24 &25 March 2012)

25 March 2012

In the morning, we were disturbed up by an irritating rooster at 5am but my roommate was still in his deep sleep. Therefore, I woke him up by rocking his body and must get down for breakfast at 5.30am.

In addition, he told me that he will bathe after me but by then he will be late.
 Indeed he was late but on time to catch the bus at 6am without taking his breakfast which I had. The bus ride to the mountain bus terminal was a few minutes away. We bought tickets and waited for our buses to fetch us up the mountain. The bus arrived and everyone got on the bus and off we go! The ride was unpleasant as we got motion sickness from the inertia of the bus cornering left and right for 2 hours long.

The environment was great and beautiful when we got there plus there was snow!! In fact, most of us have never seen or touched snow before, it’s our first time. We started throwing snowballs to each other but we must not forget that we have to climb up the mountain more to reach the peak. All of us bought straw shoes to tie on our current shoes to provide better grip on the snow.

First, our biggest obstacle was this steep slippery slope and glad we did use those straw shoes, it works!!! While walking on slopes and snow, we found snack shops along the way and I bought their corn, very tasteless, also spotted some monkeys about our torso size.

 The monkeys were harmless and friendly that people offered some food to feed them.
 We climbed till we reached the cable car station and queue for 1 and a half hour just so to travel 500 meters above sea level for just 3 minutes. When we got there to the other station, it was already 1pm and we took instant noodles there.
 Everything they sell is expensive at about $10 Yuan for a bottle of soft drink or a cup of noodles or a hot dog.

After our break, we continued climbing and finally reached the peak. We made it, at last!! The scenery was just so beautiful, all temples, gold statues and mostly all you see was clouds and sky. My friends and I went for sight-seeing and paid respect to the Buddha and the magnificent multi million dollars huge golden statue.
 It has been 7 hours long from the bottom to the peak, what an effort!!

Time was running out and we have to climb down the mountain but before we go, we had our last round of snow ball fight for 10 minutes long. We took our proper lunch at 3.30pm and went down some more and reached the hotel at 5.30pm.

By the time we got back on our main bus, the teachers ordered chicken burgers, Pepsi and fries. I was not really that hungry and gave my food to my bus mate, Praashant. 3 hours back to school but my bladder was full and along the way we had a toilet break and we slept throughout the journey.

At night 9.30pm, we were finally dorm sweet dorm. We reached the dorm all sluggish looking and I washed my muddy shoes and clothes from the hiking and end it with writing my blog halfway as I was too exhausted. What a day!!!!