Meagan's World: Dinghu Shan

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Dinghu Shan

On our first day in Zhaoqing, we cruised around town, eating and shopping and then we had a glorious 2 hour long massage session. It was only 50 yuan for both of us!! That is unbelievable. They were good massages, and that equates to 25 yuan for one 2 hour massage. Plus, you got served tea and sliced fruit during the foot massage portion.

The next day, after dim sum, we headed out to Dinghu Shan. Dinghu Shan is the premier tourist attraction of Zhaoqing, and it is about 20 km outside of town. It was very pretty and scenic, with trails through a forested area with waterfalls and streams. Also, there were about 8 hundred kathousand kajillion Chinese people on the trail. Like I said, it was a holiday week for the Chinese. They were all out hiking. It was CROWDED. And loud. And very hot. But, it was fun people watching and the kids were pretty cute. They would yell "Hello!" when we walked by and then burst into giggles. Matt and I are pretty hilarious, or at least Chinese people think so! One man walked up to us and smiled and called his son over, who looked to be about 14. He said something in Chinese to his son, and put his arm proudly around his shoulders and looked at us expectantly. His son said, "Hello. I am his son." We said hello and then they walked away. It sounds like a strange encounter, but it was actually a very heart warming thing, him being so proud of his son.

There was a temple on top of Dinghu Shan, and it wasn't exactly inspiring. While I was there I tried a rice dumpling type thing, which you can read about on my food blog. Then we kept walking and made it up to a gorgeous green lake, and further on a giant carved cauldron thing. It is hard to read about things in China because everything is in Chinese and not many people speak English. So, you end up looking at a lot of stuff and not knowing what it is or why it is there.

After our hike, we went back to our hotel and got cleaned up and had dinner. Then we had another foot massage. This time was pretty funny...we were there sort of late, maybe like 11 pm. My masseuse was being very coy and giggly and she kept trying to talk to Matt. She pantomimed that he was very tall and she giggled with his massuese. He said "What are you laughing about?" They pantomimed how big his feet were. Hmmm....this was very interesting. My massuese was completely ignoring me, not that I cared. I wanted to tell her to pay more attention to my feet and less to my boyfriend but of course I don't speak Chinese! Oh well, someday....