I met a crazy lady to go hiking with

01.01.2016

I managed to change my 2 a.m. ticket to an 8 p.m. one after my student cancelled his class on Friday night. So, I had a pretty good sleep on the train and woke up in Taiyuan. I remembered how messed up the bus stops were around the train station, so I was prepared to walk around a while until I found my bus. I ended up finding it after walking around for about an hour. It didn't matter anyway because thhey didn't start running until 6 a.m. anyway.

The east bus station was not far and when I found the right street, I was soon on my way to Wutai Shan. I loaded up on hiking snacks and ramen before the bus departed. I heard the food was expensive up there.

Once we got to the ticket check in station of Wutai Shan, a man got on the bus asking if we needed a hotel. A nice lady invited me to share a room with her. We spent the rest of the weekend together. We dropped off all our crap at the hotel and went to the famous temples together. They are Tibetan style, so they're quite different from the rest of China. There are at least 200 scattered around the mountain. I loved spinning the prayer wheels and walking around in a circle with the chanting worshippers.

It was quite difficult to communicate with Mumu, my new friend, but I basically just followed her around all afternoon. We were both interested in hiking tomorrow, so we planned to watch the sunrise together in the morning at the peak. We concocted this plan over instant noodles, beer and special local mushrooms in the hotel that night.

I was pretty sure I understood the plan, but I think she was using words that were too complicated for her translation app on her phone. Confusion ensued in the morning.

Christmas party at my house