The Climb Up Qifeng Mountain
The Climb Up Qifeng MountainStairs after stairs. Upward and upward. No, my elevator didn’t breakdown. Up and up! When does it ever end? ………… It was the Monday right after the Autumn Festival. Folks still want to go view the full moon. And where better to do that than at the top of a mountain.
Well, Qifeng Mountain is a park very close to my home. It is right at the end of the street behind my apartment. And it has a huge red ball at an observatory at the top. We were headed up there!
Tony talked me into making this trek. I was soon having second thoughts about it. It sure didn’t look this difficult from my street. But it was a longggggggggg walk.
Entering the park, we found a beautiful pond under the glow of the mountain. Around the path toward the mountaintop, we soon found it split and went in several directions. Assuming correctly that the stairs led to our destination, we headed upward.
And on upward we went. On and on. Up and up. Checking with a trekker headed down, we were informed it would be at least 30 minutes to our destination! THIRTY MINUTES!!???!! And what a climb it was. The stairs led up at steep inclines for periods, turned down for short relaxations, and then headed on and on, up and up! What a climb! I don’t even like trekking up to the sixth floor in the plant. Here I was headed up a stairway to a mountain that musta been sixty stories up! ……… Okay, maybe forty.
………………I didn’t make it. I made to the park store and relaxation area about five stories below. We were with Xiao Pan, whom I was glad to find out had some nurse background. Tony and Xiao Pan went on up. I waited at this observatory. I could see well enough, and I had had enough uphill climbing.
What a view it was! As spectacular as it was from my level, the pictures Tony took from the top proved that it was even better up there.
We found a ramp to head back down. This was a little easier, but I’m not sure it would have been any better for climbing up. A lot of people sure like climbing mountains. There had to be thousands of people this night. On the way down around 9 PM there were still thousands headed up.
We had to go have a shower afterward before heading out to eat. We had another incredible meal in a very Chinese restaurant in Dongguan City. Fish tanks and chicken feet, of course. The beer was needed. Maybe next time I visit this restaurant, I’ll be celebrating my trek to the top of Qifeng Mountain.
In the meantime, I sure hope the elevator never breaks to my 16th floor apartment!
posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 4:59 PM
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