After a weekend hiking the various beauteous ridges of the Huangshan mountain area, I am left a little bereft of words. I saw a number of them available at the park: most of the various points of interest were all named hilariously, like a bunch of Christian inspirational albums masquerading as a mountainous region. Of course, with these words in mind, and my own words sapped out of me by so much sun and hiking, I’m a little dry on things to bring to you. My legs are achey, and so is my face, so here are the pretty pictures, is what I’m saying.
As you ride the cable-car up the mountain, there is a long spiel about how best to deal with the mountain monkeys. The main premise is: don’t mess with the mountain monkeys.
Bask in the sunshine and the many, many rocks. Words to come soon.
Stupid Ugly Foreigner 
Great pictures. My Chinese teacher has been telling me for years that Huangshan is a must-see place.
Jimmy
I would say it absolutely is. I know it can be very inconsistent in terms of weather — some friends have gone when there is snow everywhere, others when it is so misty and grey you can’t see anything. But if you find a nice weekend, it’s amazing!
The area where I lived in Kyouto last year was famous for its monkeys. The people I lived with spoke of catching sight of them swinging through the branches on the way to and from school, of having them leap onto their balconies and attempt invasion, etc. The dorm was littered with posters explaining how to handle them (don’t let them see your konbini bag or they will attack it, etc.)
Not once, in the entire year I was there, did I see a single goddamn monkey.
Also, are those locks supposed to be riffing on Namsan or what?
It’s always interesting with monkeys, because usually people from places with monkeys have the reaction of, “Stop taking pictures of these obnoxious vermin,” while everyone else gets all “Look how cute! They’re just like little furry people!” I’ve come to know them as jerks, but it took a long time to get over that hump.
I’ve seen the whole love lock thing in a bunch of countries now. Was Namsan the originator of the phenomenon? I have some wiki-ing to do!
lovely pics. are there more? looking forward to the words too. guessing those padlocks are wishes, but for what?
cheers!
There’s a few more on Flickr, but most of the rest on my memory card looked kind of samey, so I erred on the side of putting up just a few.
The sky! It’s so clear!
I didn’t know how to handle it. It felt like razorblades of freshness in my larynx.