Shanghai Maglev

My friends Jill and Lauren traveled down to Shanghai with me on Halloween. When we arrived my UK friend Gary guided us through the Shanghai Pudong International Airport to the Maglev. The Maglev train is a high speed magnetic levitation train like those in Japan. It travels between PIA and Longyang Road station on the line 2 subway. During peak operation hours the train runs at 431 kmh (268 mph) and takes less than 8 minutes to go 30 km (18.6 miles).

Pic 1 is a shot of the front end of the Maglev. Pic 2 is a quick shot outside when were traveling full speed. Pic 3 is a shot of the digital speedometer readout located at the head of each car.

Shaanxi Farming

On our way to and from Fufeng, the little town where FaMenSi Temple is located, we had quite a bit of farm country to drive through. It was a nice change from the cityscape that we were now accustomed to seeing day in-day out. Fortunately for me this was harvest time for corn so I took some interesting shots.

Pics 1 & 2 are of the farm laborers gathering corn not with good 'ol John Deere combines and the such but by hand.

Pic 3 is a wide load of corn stalks that have been gathered and loaded on a 3 wheel light truck. The driver was passing through Fufeng.

Pic 4 is an interesting picture of what appears to be a multipurpose vehicle although I was not able to confirm this for sure. If you look closely, the front half looks like an oversized garden tiller. Behind it is a trailer hitched to the tiller that carries all kinds of loads as well as provides a seat for the driver. Quite a few of these vehicles were running around in Fufeng.

FaMenSi Temple- Home of Buddha's finger

First stop was the active Famen Buddhist Monastery (AKA- FamenSi or “Doorway Temple”). FamenSi was originally constructed in about 200 AD. However, it has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times that it is now a fairly modern structure. The last rebuild was in 1981 when the collapse of the 12-story pagoda led to the discovery of another amazing archaeological find. Beneath the pagoda was a sealed crypt containing a variety of relics that had been forgotten for over 1000 years. Chief among these were four sacred finger bones of the original Buddha. (Apparently, somewhere along the line, as a gesture of goodwill and/or penance, an Indian king traveled around the world giving bits of the original Buddha to various temples, and FaMenSi got a finger.)

The funniest thing we saw here was a monk wearing ear buds connected to an iPod. My friend Jenni got his picture but I haven't procured it yet. You are more than welcome to CLICK HERE to go to the official website. However, you must be capable of reading Chinese characters as there are no English translations. BUT the pictures are pretty brilliant and interesting.

Chinese National Day on Mount Hua (HuaShan)

Chinese National Day is the celebration for the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The holiday generally gives a majority of the population one week off. This is the week we traveled to Xi'an which I am glad we did. However, coming to the beautiful Hua Shan mountain on the actual Chinese National Day was not the smartest decision.

We waited 2.5 hours to even get on a bus to go up to the base of the mountain. Phil, Stephanie, Lauren, and I decided to climb to the top of the north peak while Shawna, Jenni, Spencer, Sydney, and our tour guide Eric waited in line for the cable car that took you there. It took 1 hour 40 mins to climb the path (elevation of 5,295 feet). At times the path was quite vertical or suspended off the mountain side but nonetheless fun. Jenni, Shawna, and the kids (Spencer & Sydney) waited 3 hours to take the cable car up.

Here is the interesting part that made me a little uncomfortable. We had no idea that there would be thousands of people waiting at the top to come back down from the mountain. It was so jammed packed that if one person fell or tripped, everyone behind would be going down the side of the mountain with them. Unfortunately I was only able to capture this in a video which I will post when I get to the US. On top of that we were all split up and told that there were no more tickets to get down on the cable car. The guards would only let Phil through to try and find his family. Stephanie, Lauren, and I stayed up on a ledge within sight so Phil would know where we are. Dusk was upon us and the air was getting chilly. Finally Eric came out and motioned us down. We fought through the crowd to get to an exit gate and slipped in with some men escorted by guards. The cable car ride down was 5 mins and much easier than going up.

What did I take away from this- rule of thumb: if you are going to travel on Chinese National Day, leave China or stay home. (^^,) Some day I hope to go back to Hua Shan on an uneventful day and climb the other peaks.

Pic 1 is towards the bottom of the path as we are ascending. In the upper left hand corner are the cable cars passing by overhead.
Pic 2 is of Lauren (left) and Stephanie (right) demonstrating some of the chain railed stairs we had to climb to get to the top. These increased in number the closer to the top we were.
Pic 3 is still along the path on the upper half. I think Phil took this one hanging out over the edge of the path. I was not about to do that...LOL!
Pic 4 is at the top looking back down towards the valley. Again get a little glimpse of cable cars on the left middle part of the picture. Unfortunately it was another foggy day so you can't see much beyond the cloud.
Pic 5 is a hsot of the hotel that is on the North Peak and available for overnight stays. People will come and stay here and then hike to the east peak to watch the sun rise. This pic is as close to showing some of the crowds...but most of the people where either above or below us...so it's no the best.

For more info on Mount Hua (HuaShan) CLICK HERE