Trip to yellow mountain – Tangkou

After a couple of minutes sitting round and being sold things by the various people at the Huangshan bus station, the bus arrives.

I almost miss it, but finish up in the little restaurant which sells coffee and juice drinks just in time to be the last passenger to get on.

The bus takes us along the expressway, up into the hills close to the foot of the Yellow Mountain park.

I’m staying at the One Hostel. It has internet access, which is more than can be said for the C2C last night, which cost twice as much and served a school dinner style breakfast. I had one chop stick to eat it with. Eating breakfast with one chopstick is not very easy, the C2C need to take note of this…

Here’s some snaps I took out of the window.

j3 Jingtai Expressway - Tangkou IMG_0371 j3 Jingtai Expressway - Tangkou j3 Jingtai Expressway - Tangkou

Tangkouzhen

Anyway, at new hotel now. Located downtown. Here’s a map.

Will stay here for a couple of days. I’ve got to climb the mountain tomorrow and also visit the hot springs, for an after climb bath…


View Trip to Yellow Mountain in a larger map

Trip to yellow mountain – Haungshan

So….

Here i am at Haungshan station.

Caught the train in last night .

Have been told i need to catch a bus to Tangkou town.

First by the woman at the hostel I need to travel to today. She gave me the address of a bus station they tried to take me to that was out of town… Now at a bus station which is in town outside the main train station in town.

Bye bye Edward!

Housemate from the US has parted company.

He had problems with meeting his responsibilities , and at the weekend had a bottle of beer. Or two , some Bacardi , and also some vodka.

I disappeared for the weekend , went to Nanjing.
When I came back, I heard the sound of tins being opened early in the morning.
About 6am.

This isn’t the first time this has happened.
Last weekend he drank all my brandy and the police came round because he was outside smashing things up.

He had a habit of sleeping in odd places ‘close to nature’.
People would wake me to come to the aid of Edward, outside, in a pool of his own wee (or whatever ). Sometimes he was conscious , sometimes not.

China has it’s fair share of alcoholic teachers.
The Russian I used to work with was drunk 24/7.
One of the other teachers commented “I never realized he was drunk till I saw him sober .”

Another stocked up on Bijiou to get him through his day at Kindle.

On Monday it all came to a head when Ed turned up for work on the sauce.
Police were called. Poor Eddie had to spend the best part of the day in the cells explaining and clearing things up with the Chinese authorities 。

Employers , linestart have threatened to blackball him.
Effectively making it impossible for him to get work in China.

There’s a letter.

China blackballed
China blackballed

Nanjing – General Impressions

Site of the Nanjing massacre and home to the Ming Dynasty. The mighty Nanjing has undergone some tumultuous times… It was once capital and carried out all the administrative duties of the empire named Nanking.

The city is like Chengdu. It’s got large tree lined boulevards. Elms competing with the high-rise for sky space. It’s a like parts of Rio, leafy but built up.

I travel into town in the metro. I take a look around some of the main sights. I won’t go into them in any vast detail, but just to give you a general overview of what the city is about.

Attractions around Nanjing

Here is a map of the main sights around Nanjing.

Nanjing Map
Nanjing Map

Dai pai dang restaurant

Authentic Chinese restaurant

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial

photos

The Zhonghua East Gate

photos

Purple Mountain Observatory

photos

The Blue Frog Café

Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum

photos

Linggu Gate

Xuanzang Temple

Nanjing city walls

Gujiming Temple

Of all of them, I’d say I liked the Mausoleum the most, it was free to get in and had the best views of the city. Very nice experience.

Zhonghua gate was good also.

Nanjing recommendation

I’d like to go again. Nanjing is a nice place to hang out.
It’s less of a work in progress than this Shanghai area, which is preparing itself for the opening up of a free-trade zone in the next couple of weeks.

This means that Shanghai and the surrounding area, (of which we’re part), will be the subject of some extensive growth.

The Chinese are trying to cash in on this by throwing up all number of buildings and developments in the hope that the economy will explode. Nanjing is not subject to that level of growth and it shows.

It’s nice not to be surrounded by cranes and live on a constant building site, which is what it sometimes feels like here.