Emeishan

From Habitat for Humanity we drove to Emeishan (Emei Mountain) to spend a night and hike the mountain for or first fun activity of the weeklong trip!

We arrived around 3 o'clock in the afternoon and checked into the hotel. 30 minutes later we were back on the bus to go see a local Buddhist temple. The temple was a lot like the ones we have been to with the statues and all the religious relics but this temple has one unique feature unlike any of the temples I've visited; the temple had 7 separate temples, one above the other up the side of a steep mountain. So in order to explore the entirety of the temple oh have to walk through one temple, go through the back, and walk up a long staircase to the next temple and repeat the process. At the very top was the very last temple and quite clearly the most important. The temple's main room was lined wall to wall and floor to ceiling with golden statues. In the center of room was a statue of a white elephant with buddha sitting on top of it. It was different from other temples that we've seen so far in China!

Later that night we just had free time at the hotel. Part of the hotel package that our program paid for was for us to be able to visit the hot springs on our hotel's land! We all got in our swim suits and robes and headed to the hot springs right after the sun went down! It was a really big with lots of pools and bridges to the different pools all incredibly hot and felt amazing! Part of the hot springs was 4 different mini hot tub like pools that had herbal elements. The pools were banana, cocoa, menthol, and orange that didn't quite smell like how thy should but definitely different in color. All of the different pools were said to help with circulation, bacteria, and other ailments that would be cured by sitting in the pools. Mostly I found it was just relaxing because it was essentially a hot tub! The last pool we found was very interesting but I didn't get in because it cost a lot to do. There was a shallow warm pool of water that has hundreds of little fish swimming around inside. You go to the edge of the pool and stick your feet into the water and all the little fish swim up and nibble on your feet! The fish are eating the calluses on your feel so if you soak your feet and let the fish eat at the calcium deposits, you will leave the pool with soft feet, a lot like getting your feet scrubbed during a pedicure! The hot springs was really interesting as well as a wonderfully relaxing way to wrap up the day!

The next day we headed up to Emeishan! It was pretty cold and still had a fair amount of snow on the ground which made it slippery at times. To kept keep from slipping we bought these grass woven flats that we're tied onto the bottom of your shoes. The difference was night and day! The woven accessory completely worked and gave us 100% traction even on icey parts we walked on! 

The "hiking" on Emeishan was much like "hiking" Huangshan because it was all just walking up an endless staircase. It was also a little strange because all the way up the mountain were food stands and gift stores which kind of ruined the nature quality of being on a mountain. The mountain was also packed with Chinese tourists, most of which belonging to a tour group led by someone holding a flag and yelling into a megaphone, once again ruining most of the nature aspect of hiking a mountain.

My favorite part of making our way to the top of the mountain came at about the half way mark when the monkeys came out to play! As we entered an area of the mountain we began seeing monkeys everywhere! These were not tiny little adorable monkeys like Abu from Aladin, these monkeys were 40 pounds, hairy, and hungry! They also had zero fear of all the tourists, probably because they knew they would win that fight. Everyone was feeding the monkeys food but the monkeys were quite greedy and took much more then they were given. A tourist pulled a mini cake out of a big package to give to the money, the monkey snuck over and took the entire package from the tourist. My friend Mal gave a price of corn to a monkey, the money reached into her bag to swipe her Gatorade and proceeded to bite the bottom of the bottle and shotgun the Gatorade! They were so fun to watch though! When we were hanging out in one area we spotted a momma monkey with a brand new baby clinging to her stomach while she ran around! We also saw about 4 baby monkeys all playing together and I made the comment "Ahh I wish a money would come play with me!"... Be careful what you wish for! Not even a full minutes passed and I felt a little hand on my shoulder, I turned around and one of the babies was standing on the railing leaning on me for a second and then it jumped directly on my shoulder! He was so cute but I couldn't hide my fear that he was just going to get angry and rip my face off with those sharp teeth of theirs! But he just sat on my shoulder hanging out, he even started playing with my hair and preening me at one point! It seemed like he would never leave so I eventually had to basically push him off and back onto the fence! And now on my white hat I was wearing, I have a muddy handprint of a baby monkey from when he was playing with my head! 

Unfortunately we did have to leave the monkey's and continue to the top of the mountain but we had to take a gondola to get there. We arrived at the top and that's where we learned that on the top of the mountain was a very famous temple and golden statue! The statue was over 60 meters high, bright gold, and was surrounded by elephants! We got to the top but unfortunately there was heavy fog on the top of the mountain and we couldn't even see to the top of the golden figure (but I'll add a photo of what the whole thing looks like!). But the inside of the golden figure had a beautiful relic of Buddha and many offerings surrounding it. Behind the golden statue was the temple with 3 Buddhas. The temple and statue were so impressive because of their grand presentation and the fact that they were massive structures located on the top of a huge mountain! Such a unique experience and an awesome day trip!