My winter visit to Yellow Mountain 

Written by Feb 8, 2012 01:25
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At the last night of 2011, our shuttle bus left Xian and headed for the Yellow Mountain. I and other passengers welcomed 2012 in the shuttle bus.

I was not excited to celebrate the arrival of 2012 because I didn’t sleep well in the shuttle bus. In front of me was a huge guy. He was too heavy. When he sat down, his chair bended and my space became very narrow. Sometimes, his chair almost pressed my knees. I talked this to him but he couldn’t help leaning on his chair. As a result, my knees suffered. I was praying that we could get to the Yellow Mountain as soon as possible.

Eventually, our shuttle bus arrived at Tunxi Ancient Street on Jan. 1, 2012. Actually, we were late for two hours because of the thick fog. The driver had to slow down to keep us safe. The fog still surrounded the Tunxi Ancient Street when we arrived. All of us were disappointed because it is very difficult to appreciate the beauty of the ancient street and take some beautiful pictures.
Tunxi Ancient Street
fluffy tofu, a snack on the Tunxi Ancient Street

After the shuttle bus stopped, we came to the hostel we booked and threw our luggage in the rooms. None of us felt happy but we still got on the bus again because we would go to Xidi and Hongcun today. Perhaps, the God knew what we thought about. The sunlight suddenly penetrated the thick fog when we almost arrived at Xidi.

We had a quick lunch after we arrived. Then we came to Xidi.

Compared with Hongcun, Xidi is smaller. However, they share one similarity, that is, both villages represent the exquisiteness of the Huizhou style architecture. The ancestor of Xidi village was the son of Emperor Zhaozong of the Tang Dynasty. He survived the military coup, changed his surname to Hu and lived secluded in this small village.
Xidi Village
The archway at the entrance of the Xidi Village

If someone asks me what Xidi and Hongcun look like, I will tell him it is all about “White and Black”. The walls are white but the titles and the door frames are black. Wandering on the narrow paths, I felt that I was back to the ancient times. If possible, I would live in Xidi or Hongcun for several days.
Hongcun Village

The sun sank slowly and we felt the coldness at the lake in front of the Hongcun Village. The rotten lotus leaves in the lake reminded us that the winter had come. Time to get back to Tunxi Ancient Street.

It was dark when we arrived at the Tunxi Ancient Street. We didn’t have time to appreciate the ancient street when we arrived in the morning. Tonight, I planned to have a thorough tour on this street.

Tunxi Ancient Street is located at the center of the Tunxi District, Huangshan City. It has a history of several hundreds years. The street is just 832 meters long and 5-8 meters wide. It is not a long street but you can not imagine that it is the most intact commercial pedestrian street built in the style of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It is famed as the flowing “Qingming Festival on the River”.

Our hostel was very close to the end of the street. It just took us five minutes to enter the street from its end on foot. We decided to have supper at the Di Yi Lou located at the entrance of the ancient street. Thus, we had to walk from the end of the street to its entrance.

We were shocked when we stepped into the Di Yi Lou. The restaurant was full of tourists. Obviously, the tourists were also attracted by its Anhui style dishes. If we decided to have supper here, we had to wait at least 1.5 hours.

To wait or not wait, it was a problem to us. At last, all of us decided to seek another restaurant to eat because we were all hungry. The waiters recommended us to try smelly mandarin fish. He said that it was a famous dish. We did give it a try. The mandarin fish was smelly, salty but very delicious. We ate it up very quickly. The chef was very happy and told us how to make the smelly mandarin fish.

The most important is to salt the mandarin fish in the wood bucket for 4-7 days with a temperature of 25 degrees. When you smell the smelly smell, take fish out and cook it as you wish.

We left that restaurant after paying the bill. Then my friend suggested we eat some snacks on the street. We agreed. Suddenly, we were lured by the odor from a vendor. We noticed that he sold fluffy tofu. The vendor fried fluffy tofu in the pan and then it turned into a piece of golden tofu. He spread some salt, minced spring onion and other seasonings over it. We tasted it and it was nice.

It was not good to sleep just after eating supper. Thus, we were still wandering on the ancient street. It took me more than half an hour to take photos. At that moment, we decided to get back to hour hostel because we had to get up at 06:00 and take bus to Huangshan.

A Chinese saying has it that the landscapes of the Huangshan are much better than other five famous mountains (Mt. Taishan, Mt. Huashan, Mt. Hengshan, Mt. Songshan and Mt. Hengshan) in China. Sadly, I haven’t been to the five famous mountains before. It’s difficult for me to imagine how magnificent they are.

However, I was conquered by Huangshan. The landscapes were amazing on Huangshan. Our shuttle bus arrived at the East Ridge and then we transferred the shuttle bus in the Yellow Mountain scenic area to Ci Guang Ge. It snowed before we arrived at the Yellow Mountain. Considering of the limited traveling period and our safety, we took the cable car from Ci Guang Ge to Pu Tuan Song. Then we were divided into several groups and started our exploration on the Yellow Mountain.
Guest-Greeting Pine
Yellow Mountain in fog
Flying stone on the Yellow Mountain

Tip: The peaks on the Yellow Mountain will not be open for visit at the same time. They will be open for visit every a couple of years. In this way, the natural environment will be protected very well.

Thus, you have come to the Yellow Mountain many times to visit all of the peaks.

The weird pines, absurd stones, sea of clouds and hot springs are four wonders of the Yellow Mountain. I wished that I could take some photos of the sea of the clouds but failed at last. But I saw Ying Ke Song (Guest-Greeting Pine). Many tourists came to the pine to take photos.

The Bright Summit Peak was just so so. But the flying stone looked much attractive in the sunset.
The sunset on the Yellow Mountain

According to our plan, we had to get up early to see the sunrise on the Yellow Mountain. My friends and I got up at 05:00 and went out to see the sunrise. The sun was said to rise at 07:03 but we had to occupy prepared positions early. We waited for almost two ours but didn’t see the sun rise. The sun hid in the fog and never showed up.

Many of us felt disappointed because we failed to see any of the four wonders of the Yellow Mountain. We got back to the hotel and had breakfast. Suddenly, snowflakes were falling from the sky. “It is snowing”, shouted a girl. Fine! We failed to see the four wonders but came across the snowy Yellow Mountain. It wasn’t bad.
Snowy Yellow Mountain
Snowy Yellow Mountain

The snowy Yellow Mountain was amazing but a couple on the mountain did shock us. The wife brought her 1 year kid to the top of the mountain and made a V gesture to take photos. They didn’t look tired but very happy. I wonder how many difficulties they conquered to climb to the top of the mountain in snow.
A couple with their lovely baby

There are too many imperfect things in the world. Take my trip for example. We didn’t see the four wonders of the Yellow Mountain. But we didn’t feel regretted because we saw the snowy Yellow Mountain. My friends and I made a promise that we will come to visit the Yellow Mountain again. Hopefully, we can see the four wonders in our next visit.

 More Huangshan Travel Reviews
1. Tour Mt. Huangshan in Rainy and Foggy Days EDISON Aug 16, 2011 19:55
2. Yellow Mt - the most beautiful natural scenery in China! MARTIN from USA Dec 8, 2010 12:34
3. Travel Tips of Yellow Mountain (Mt. Huangshan) KATRINA Nov 15, 2010 21:59
Comments (1)

1.

Jan 8, 2015 22:18 Reply

WISATA said:

wow nice view

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