Today Cala and I went hiking at Yangming Mountain to Mt. Qixing. It's 1120 meters high (about 3,000 ft) and it took 2.27 km (1.41 miles) to walk there. We left at 5:45am to take the first bus since we expected this trip to take 5 hours. We both had a class tonight so we wanted to get home early enough to relax before we had to work. We took the correct bus but we couldn't find the second bus to transfer. We figured it out and all the buses were filled with older Taiwanese people getting ready to hike. Hiking is a popular pasttime for the older Taiwanese generation. The age range of these people are probably about 60s-80s and they are definitely in shape.
We reached the park and we get outside to find out that it is drizzling. It's just really annoying since the past couple of days it was so nice outside and of course the day we hike, it's rainy. It took us awhile to get to the trail but we finally started the trail at 7am. The steps weren't too bad and it was warm enough to wear my tank top and not have to wear my jacket. I was wearng shorts and my shoes didn't have the best traction since they had shocks. We were walking halfway there and it wasn't too bad. The stone steps were ok until we reached a little halfway to the peak and the trail became really steep. The steps were elevated higher so it was harder to climb up each step. The path got curvier and the rain didn't help at all since it made the stone steps slippery. It was pretty intense at some times because you would just look up and all you would see were more steps. We got to a grassy area, only a couple of kilometers away from the peak and the rain really started to pick up. The wind was blowing like crazy and we both had to wear our jackets again. We finally got to the top and we were basically in a middle of a cloud. It was super foggy and you couldn't see anything. We wanted to see the beautiful view of Taipei but the weather ruined it and you couldn't see anything except whiteness. (pictures above). It only took us about 50 mins to walk it up since we took some time taking pictures.
Walking back down the mountain was a whole different story. Well right when we were starting to head back, this guy who's not wearing a shirt and just wearing shorts, runs past us down the steps, practically jumping down. He was so crazy, but sadly he definitely outbeat us in walking down a mountain. Cala and I got passed a couple of times and a lot of the Taiwanese people were worried that I would get sick since I was wearing shorts and they would talk and ask me about it lol They were surprised I would be wearing shorts but it really wasn't that cold. I'm still used to the snow and cold winters of Iowa. The funny thing was that I was afraid of walking down the steep stairs since I didn't want to fall and my shoes aren't good handling traction. I slipped a couple of times and did fall a little bit (on flat land luckily) but at one point I would always fall or stagger when I was around people and Cala was joking around and said I was doing it on purpose and wanted attention lol It was pretty embarrassing though that I was slipping and having to walk really slow. We got back to our apartment at 10am. It was awesome! We then got lunch, we both went to Starbucks, and I studied a little bit of Chinese. I had to sub a class tonight and I'm not as tired. I feel pretty good considering I got up around 5am to hike a mountain!! Cala and I are definitely going back up again when the weather gets nicer.
-Chihchat
No comments:
Post a Comment