Day 24 (27th March) Wudang mountain Day 1

Woke up very early today as we need to report at 7am for the trip to Wu dang shan. We ordered Mac delivery for breakfast. By the time the delivery man came, it was almost 7. Therefore, we had to eat on the bus. It took 5 hours to reach Wu dang shan from the campus. We had our lunch in a restaurant near wudang shan. The restaurant is very smoky and the chairs they use are those round plastic chairs with no back support. 5 out of 8 dishes served are vegetables. Just like a vegetarian lunch set. One of the dishes they served is actually donkey meat! I didn’t know it at first and I actually tried it. Felt so disgusted after I knew what I ate was donkey meat.

This is the donkey meat

After lunch, we had a 15 minutes bus ride and we finally reached wudang shan. We visited 3 sites in total and we had to transfer from bus to bus to reach the next destination. Firstly, we visited tai zi po, a Taoist temple.

After that visited zi xiao gong, which is also a temple. On the central axis are five ascending terraces on which were respectively built the Dragon and Tiger Hall, the Tablet pavilion, the Shifang Hal, the Zixiao Grand Hall and the Parental Hall . On each side of these buildings are auxiliary buildings standing in three independent rows . Row upon row, these halls and buildings form a building complex with a distinct division between the main building and auxiliary ones. At each side of the palace is a group of independent quadrangles for use by Taoist monks as living quarters.
We tried the tea that they brewed. After the 3rd mouth of tea, even the tasteless plain water or saliva will taste sweet! Isn't it interesting?

Finally, we got to check in our hotels at 4 plus. The hotel is called jiu long shan zhuang. Sounds like those inns of the olden days. The outer of the hotel looks not bad. However, it is very empty inside and there weren’t any people in the hotel other than the service attendants. It seems like it’s been a long time since there were people staying there. We only had 10 minutes to put our stuffs and we need to assemble at the lobby. The tour guide brought us to tour around the vicinity and after that we were allowed to walk around ourselves. We gathered at 6 plus for dinner at tai he restaurant. The place is very dirty and the hygiene is very bd as well. The waitress used their bare hands to clear the leftovers on the tables and used the same cloth to wipe the big table without even rinsing it once. The food wasn’t anyway better. the fried rice was tasteless and it was just like another vegetarian dinner.

Our hotel, 九蘢山莊

We went back to our hotel after that. This is the best accommodation we had and there’s also a tv in the room. However, the toilet spoils it all! There’s no hot water in our room. Therefore, we had to go teeli’s and amanda’s room to bath. Other than that, everything’s good. Looking forward to tomorrow and also challenge ourselves to climb wu dang shan! Hope everything will go on smoothly. Slept at around 1 plus as we need to report at 7am.


Reflection:
After today, I know more about Taoism. Visiting the different temples is just like I’ve been brought back to the Ming dynasty! It’s really interesting to know the histories of the various temples and the gods that Taoist believes in. Jiu long shan zhuang, as a 3 star hotel, should have all the basic facilities that a hotel should have. I don’t see any reason why should there be no hot water in the room. They should make sure everything is working before letting a customer check in. this gives me a really bad impression of the standard of the hotels in china.