Six am has been the earliest that I've woken up all trip. With a foggy head and bleary eyes we got on a bus to Hehuanshan (Hehuan Mountain). Before leaving, we had Sunblock Time in our room. It's named after tee-shirt time from the trash show Jersey Shore. Someone please explain to me.
Sunblock was necessary at such high elevations. The peak of the mountain we climbed is 3,400 m. Hiking was slow going, so JiLing and I pretended to be zombies to pass the time. Anyways, climbing at a zombie pace felt better. The air was very thin, so even the fittest of our group was having a hard time breathing. Plus groaning like we wanted to eat Richard's brains helped relieve my headache.
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| Ahhhh we're coming for you! |
The view from the top was splendid! The most beautiful thing I've seen to date here. I keep saying that, and then there are always more amazing sights to see. At the peak some hikers had a camera set up for a time lapse. I've always wanted to do a similar project...so Jimmy and I got in some of their shots. Hehe.
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| Ready... |
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| Go! |
Edelweis, Edelweis. Every morning you greet me.
Soft and white. Clean and bright. You look happy to me, to me.
Well despite singing this song multiple times, we never found the plant.
Vico has been joking that our Alpine schedule looks something like this: Wake from sleeping, eat breakfast, sleep, hike, sleep, hike, eat lunch, sleep, eat dinner, sleep for the night. This is almost true. Every since arriving at MeiFeng farm it feels like we're always eating. It's a change from eating in the States. Each meal has more elaborate food. Even at breakfast we have veggies, meat, bread, and soup. The "biodiversity" of our meal is not very high; meaning we often have the same dishes. That's alright with me, because I usually just grab a bit of everything. Yes, I have renounced my pescetarian way. Shocking!Eating meat here (in small quantities) is probably more interesting than eating meat at home. I've tried frog's stomach among all of the normal dishes here. But I'll probably return to eating rabbit food and seafood when I get back. I don't think my current diet is agreeing with my digestion.
Richard posed an interesting question to me, as a joke. He asked, "If there were sea cows, sea pigs, and sea chickens, would I eat them?" Probably not, but luckily I don't have to consider that. Enough diet talk. If you'd really like to know about my habits then you can just ask.
If you want to count our bird watching video as the sleeping part of our schedule, I guess you could. I personally didn't nod off, but instead learned about the Taiwanese Liocichla.Oh no! My time here is about halfway over. Sad story, as Steven would say. What has been really wonderful, besides the sights, has been getting to know my classmates. While we're hanging out outside of lectures and during field trips, I feel almost as comfortable as when I'm with my friends from home. During lecture I'm usually quiet, but when we're not around our professors or Jack, that's a different story. Singing, dancing, and talking about our similarities and differences has taken this trip from good to great. Now I'm not bothered as much when I can't understand Mandarin. It makes me want to continue studying the language.
Of course I haven't had the chance to talk to everyone extensively, but I hope to by the end of my time here. It's also interesting to observe how some people gravitate towards others (Psychology major here). I guess I shouldn't have expected us to be one tight-knit family. Even across continents college students have different friend groups. Even across continents there are introverts. I'm very glad when I get a chance to talk with those who are less outgoing, because they won't shout out in a group of people, but can still hold great conversations one-on-one. Sometimes the conversations are even longer and deeper. I hope I can stay in touch with everyone when we part ways.
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