September in Review

Here's a video compiled from last month's events...or anytime I remembered to bring a camera. Footage includes a trip to a village, Bathing Festival (where all the locals go to the river to bathe or wash their clothes), ultimate frisbee, frisbee golf, soccer, and other random clips. 

A lot of jumpy video this time. Just close your eyes, and the spinning should stop.

August in Review

I threw together some of the videos I took from this past month to let you see what August looked like for us.  It includes footage from the biggest religious festival in our city, the picnic, traveling around the province, and baking class.

Enjoy :)

The Climb Up Mt. Fuji

Aaron had never even thought about climbing Mt. Fuji until I surprised him saying that on our way back to China, we were going to stop in Japan to climb it.

Most tourists start the climb up Mt. Fuji more than half way to the top.  There are 10 stations on Mt. Fuji (each station has resting areas and hostels to stay in), and most people start from station 5.

I should have known what I was getting into when I told Aaron we were hiking Fuji....Aaron doesn't consider starting halfway up actually climbing Mt. Fuji. So we started from before station 1, in the town closest to Mt. Fuji.

A non-snow capped Mt. Fuji from the nearest town

The start of the trail for us began at a Buddhist temple

He's ready to go.

We left the town around 10:15, and made it to station 8 where we spent the night (just a few hours) by 7:30pm.  Then we got up at 2:30 to make the last little hike up to the very top to watch the sunrise.

We got to the top around 3:30am and the sun was starting to rise.  We still had about an hour left from this picture.

The line of people hiking up Fuji
all of those lights are the head lamps of the people climbing the volcano

They play the Japanese National Anthem when the sunrises

trying to get a picture with the sunrise in the background

the crater of the volcano behind us

It was a hard hike for me.  We climbed from around 2,000ft to 12,388ft at the summit.  But it was worth it in the end.  And now I completely understand the popular saying about Mt. Fuji: 

"He who climbs Mout Fuji once is a wise man; he who climbs it twice is a fool."

Whoever said that must have started from where we started.

me gusta la montaña

It snowed here a couple of weeks ago.  It was cold enough in the valley to actually stick to the ground, but the mountains looked like this when we woke up the next morning:

I love where we live.

campfire

On Friday, our camping trip turned into a day trip when we learned of regulations preventing us from spending the night outside of the school.  But we still had a great time.  It's really beautiful up here.  You can find a great camping spot/day spot really easily.

fall colors in the background!  Only yellow, but we'll take them.

We went with a family that owns a few cafes in the city

campfire.  roasting corn on sticks.
i loved the way i smelled after this.

a little embarrassed to be acting macho....or just embarrassed by his company

虎跳峡 Hu Tiao Xia, Tiger Leaping Gorge

Have you ever mentally thought that you could do more than your body is physically able to, but didn't realize it until your body was forced into one of three things: passing out, pooping your pants, or throwing up?


That's what happened to me last week.  Aaron and I went to Yunnan Province to Tiger Leaping Gorge (the deepest gorge in the world) to do a couple day hike through the high trail.  Aaron had been before 5 years ago and after seeing his pictures I really wanted to go.  So last week during our International Labor Day Holiday Aaron and I did the hike.  When we got to the start of the trail there were a lot of other people joining us, so of course, I wanted to pass them.  I didn't want other people on my quiet, get away from the city and other people, trail.  So I pushed hard (or at least hard for me).  And then about 30 minutes into the trail, I asked Aaron if we could stop for a break.


Then I sat down.
"I think I'm going to pass out....."
"....I may poop my pants...."
"....Can you sit down next to me?"
Lean my head on his shoulder, then immediately bounce my head back up, turn away from him and throw up down the trail.
Twice.


I had to sit there and watch as people I worked so hard to get in front of walked through my vomit.  Whoops.


I'm not sure why I threw up actually.  That part of the trail isn't that hard.  It wasn't too hot.  I was going fast for myself, but not super fast - I mean, Aaron kept up without throwing up.  We were at 7,000ft which is higher than we live at, but we had been at the elevation for a couple of days already and I felt better after I threw up.  I may have drank too much water or not enough....not sure.  But I threw up.  We sat for a minute, then we kept going.


And we still beat everyone we started with to the Halfway Guesthouse.

on the way to the gorge

not too long after the throwing up incident.  feeling better.

at halfway guesthouse
what a hottie.

Our friend Graham came to visit us for a week!  It was a whirlwind of a trip.  In the week he was here he spent only two nights at our apartment, ascended to 17,000+ ft, fled a oncoming blizzard at Everest Base Camp, ate Tibetan, Indian, Nepali, Taiwanese fast food, and Chinese, rode around in a Land Cruiser, picked up a hitch hiking nun.....the list goes on.


Unfortunately I don't have pictures to cover all of the things above - but here are a few pictures to get us started. 

Meet Graham

His album drops soon.

 Locals

The Girls

 The Boys

The Boys with Locals

The Land

Everest

The boys survived a blizzard at Base Camp....only they left before the blizzard started.  They FLED a blizzard at base camp.  Not many people can say that. 

Below is an artist's rendering of what it would have looked like if Everest wasn't being bombarded by snow.  She's a beaut, Clark, a real beaut.

Artist's Rendering

Also, please note - it took me forever to do that. If we had something like photoshop or even paint, that would have taken no time.....but i had to turn the picture into a pdf, then download onto another website, then embed into the blog.  phew.

Isn't she lovely

China is beautiful.


This past week was the national holiday in China, so we got what they call "Golden Week," which means a week off of work and school.  So Aaron and I took a trip to the mountains, a trip we've been hoping to take for a while.

Here are some of the pictures from our trip.  I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves, although I know these pictures in no way capture how beautiful it all was.

We took the train on the way to the mountains, and a flight on the way out - so you'll see some pictures from the ground and the air.