Day 27

Weee~ the moment when this blog post is posted, it marks the 27th day of the Wuhan life. I have almost conquered a month!!! This day of next week we will be in a plane waving good bye to Wuhan in the Wuhan sky.

We woke up at 6 and breakfast at 630. The 7am bus ride takes up only 5 mins to get to the entrance of Wu Dang Shan. Today’s mission is to get to the golden hall, which stands 1612m tall! KICK OFF @ 0845!


Brief background introduction:
The name Wu Dang Shan is applied to the entire mountain range, crossing several valleys and small hills. It is known as a Taoist center which is also an academic centre for the research, teaching and practice of meditation, martial arts, and traditional Chinese medicine. They have easily existed for more than 1500 years.


For the convenient, the batch is split into groups. Group A started off as soon as the light turns green~!! FYI: Cable car service is down! Have to CLIMB!

On the way up, we see people carrying boxes of cup noodles, cartons of beer and mineral water, bags of rice, etc. I believe they average carried weight is not any lesser than 50KG. Not forgetting to mention that the distance up to the last shop can be up to 5km!

This is one of the *funny* dustbins found along stretch.

And after like 2 hours of climbing, we finally see light! The signboard saying 0.3km to golden hall never seems so nice before! Of course my group caught up with Jamie’s and Houng Sheng’s and took a ten minute break at the cable car entrance.

Upon reaching, we see locks all over the balcony, wall, anywhere that is possible to be locked! The lock symbolizes the solidity of the relationship, or luck. Normally people will buy a lock at the peak and place it along the balcony for love. As for me, I purchased with Jamie for a couple lock~! And we locked it right beside the tablet which shows THE PEAK OF WU DANG. Free craving service for the lock! HAPPY~!


Looking down from the top, everything is becoming so small below. That was then I realize the steepness of the steps we took! Worse still, the chilling wind and water droplets are making my fingers numb. On top is a golden hall, which is actually a temple at the peak. Can’t really think at that moment and quickly take a group shot and faster went down! What a waste to forget to visit the founder of the Wu Dang Sect, namely Zhang San Feng (张三丰).

The way down was so much easier than the way up, took about 3 hours to climb up and only takes half the time to go down.

Spend another an hour having lunch at the middle of the mountain, and spent rest of the day on bus. And finally, we reached the school at around 9.30pm.


Personal Reflection/Feelings:

The shop houses along the road up are owned by senior citizens. This means they have to travel up and down in order to stock up their products. Add on, the visitors are of elderly, one can easily see a old age elderly holding walking stick at any corner of the Wu Dang path. The spirit of challenging hardship for the sake of worshipping the gods is very much honored.

Another important lesson learnt is that the culture of China is well preserved. Despite the torn down of the venue, the locals kept everything intact. They are never stop upgrading the place, in the sense that path are cemented, and cleaning it. For example, I accidentally forgot to take my can drink from the remote resting area, the next moment I went back for it, the place is cleaned all over.

In conclusion, the culture in Wu Dang is very much learnt!