Catching up with old friends
Part of the reason I came to China in the first place was that I wanted to catch up with Tina, an old friend who I worked with back in Australia.
After some confusion about transport and addresses (I’m still terrible at recognising Chinese characters) we met up at her place before going to tackle Ba Da Chu Mountain. This is essentially a string of temples that are built all the way up the side of a mountain, with interesting stone walls and sculptures along the way.
The temples were also very colourful and impressive; to be honest I’m starting to get a bit sick of them – they’re all pretty similar. It’s more the locations I find interesting.
Overall it was a very nice trip – quiet, with few people but very beautiful scenery. I ran up the last section up the mountain solo, with Tina a bit tired. This was potentially a bad idea as with the heavy rain all day my shoes had been wet through for the last 10 hours, and as a result my feet took a beating on the run over some pretty rough terrain.
It’s not like there was much point anyway, the pollution and smog meant that you really couldn’t see anything of interest at the summit. I’m a bit disappointed about that. I like the feeling of reaching the top of a mountain and looking out to see what you’ve just conquered.
