The Second Time to the Top of the World.

Class. Again… how does this keep happening?

Oh well it was over eventually and we all hopped onto a bus where we had a tour of the Shantou Daily Newspaper Syndicate. It was a good tour though difficult to hear the English translations at times. Either way, we were able so see how journalists and editors work in China.

After a brief stint of looking for food downtown (which was unsuccessful unless we wanted to eat motorcycle parts) we took the 21 bus back to the University.

Some people went for lunch and then we set off for another hike. This time we were going to take the road to the rock with the flag and then go from there. There were three of us. It was hot out, but we managed to make it to the hill. Then we were on the hill and somehow we managed to keep climbing. After a while we could see our destination and from then on morale seemed to grow. We were at the temple being constructed and then on the staircase leading up the mountain.

We made it to the top and were at the base of the great boulders with the rope and rebar sticking from them. One at a time we climbed the rope to the first landing, and then one at a time we climbed the rebar ladder. The three of us stood together at the Top of the World and looked out over everything.

There were some Chinese men who took great fascination at the two Canadian women standing on the rock, actually, they took even greater fascination watching the Canadian women struggle back down the rebar and rope. They even took the time to take pictures of the descent, but when I climbed down the cameras vanished. Evidently I am not as photogenic…

Down the rock and passed the temple. We had tons of energy and climbed to another peak. From there we found a path and began down. Our path vanished and we found ourselves scaling giant boulders down the mountain. This was a slow route but it seemed that we were making progress. It was all good until the going got tough and then the going stopped. We were standing on a bunch of boulders that had no safe way down from them and in the cracks between the boulders you could fall 10-30 feet without ever hitting anything.

The sun was getting low, and the thought that we might not make it out before sundown hit all of us.

We turned, and as fast as we could we climbed. I guess that humans are better at climbing up than down so when we started to go up it was much easier and much faster. In what seemed like not time we were back to the top of the hill, on the path, and then BAM, on the road. Then we sat.

It was dark when we had walked back home and grabbed lemonade slurpees at the East Gate. Then home and showers and then more slurpees… which seems to be a bad idea now but I have survived.

Most of our crew went to town to party but I went to bed.