Woke up early to a lovely breakfast of zhou (a kind of rice porridge), potato bread and hard boiled eggs. It was super tasty...and apparently we got lucky because most people were served dinner's leftovers for breakfast. After we got all of our things packed, it was time to start the hike. We dropped off unnecessary things on the bus and got to take a ride on donkey carts to the point where we would be starting the hike. I think the initial climb was one of the hardest parts of the hike. The view from the mountains was absolutely amazing. It was a super long hike....probably took 6-7 hours to walk all the way through the mountains to the village at the other side. During the hike we actually crossed from Shanxi into the Hebei province. Kinda neat thing to do. The hike down was definitely the hardest part. My legs were really hurting by the end of the descent. It was pretty much a 90 minute hike straight down the side of the mountain. Looking back up, I couldn't believe some of the stuff that we climbed down.
Once we reached the village, we grabbed some food at the local restaurant and settled down in the hotel for the night. I ran out to grab some snacks for the bus ride the next day and had an interesting time talking to a few people around the supermarket we stopped at. The hotel claimed it had hot showers, but the water was not very hot. I guess I should just be glad I got to take a shower at all.
In the morning, we woke up early and drove to a small village that has a huge catholic church. It was really interesting to see because it's definitely not something you expect to see in China since it's almost the exact opposite of the government here. We weren't allowed to go inside because you need to be granted permission and we were not able to get it. They're not a fan of letting westerners into churches around here in case we would cause trouble or something of that nature. We were able to walk around the outside of it though. After exploring the church area, 4 vans were waiting to pick us up and drive us about 30 minutes up the creek bed. Although our bus driver was awesome, it was just not a drive a bus could make. My van actually got stuck on some rocks at some point and we had to leave the van behind and continue on foot. We climbed up the side of a mountain to visit an old broken down Buddhist temple. It was a really neat place to explore and it also had an amazing view, though it was quite a hike to get to the top. Very steep inclines here, but totally worth it. Relaxed and explored here for a while then headed back to the vans and then to the bus.
Stopped in a small town nearby for a delicious lunch and then started the ride back to Beijing. The ride back was.....interesting. I actually fell asleep shortly after the bus left and woke up just as we were getting to Beijing. It did not feel like I slept for 4 hours at all! Grabbed some food and headed back to the global village to unpack and do homework.
Today I had 1 class from 8-10 and spent the rest of my day slaving over the remainder of my homework. I have so much to get done in these next 2 weeks that I'm really stressing out about it. For tomorrow, I have to finish my writing packet, study for a quiz, do a book exercise and set up a time to move in to my homestay as well as having class from 8-8 with a 1 hour break for lunch. For Wednesday, I have to make 2 powerpoints, give a presentation and do whatever homework I get assigned tomorrow. I have another presentation on Friday and on Monday I have a 600 word essay due followed by a midterm the following Friday. And I have to find time to buy a bike before I move into my homestay. It is not going to be a fun week. I already had trouble sleeping last night because I have so much work to do. I will be quite glad when things settle down. Tomorrow is going to be a tough one. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep well tonight. Also hoping the pollution tomorrow isn't as bad as it was today....today was absolutely horrible and it did not help to improve my mood at all!
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