Precious Moments: Wu Yi Shan (mountain) Trip

June 19th was the start of the Dragon Boat Festival so my Philipino friend and I made a plan to go to WuYi mountain in NanPing. NanPing is still in Fujian Province (same as Xiamen), so by high speed train it took around 3.5 hours to arrive.

Chinese pancake. All kinds of food and drink are allowed on the train.

At the Wu Yi Shan North train station, there's a connecting bus people can take that drops off at different stops. For the mountain, we got off at Wu Yi Shan station. It usually costs but this time was free because it was a holiday.

Tea culture set up in the hotel room.

After checking into the hotel, we went to a tea culture experience (though I've already experienced it alot with my tea guy friend 😅) and tried new teas. This area is known for red tea, oolong tea, and black tea.

After the tea culture, we meandered down the walking street with all sorts of street food and shops lining it. This area is known for their duck meat and it absolutely deserves that rating. 😋💯

Then we watched the performance of "Impression Da Hong Pao." It's an outdoor live show with the Great King Peak and Chong Yang creek in view. The coolest thing is that visitors get to sit in the world's first 360-degree rotating auditorium. Each turn displays new dances with music and lights, showing different scenes of tea life from the Tang and Song dynasties.

It was spectacular. It included the Bamboo Grove Dance. This scene is set against the backdrop of tea drinking in the bamboo forest of the Song Dynasty. The dancers gracefully dance among the bamboo shadows, naturally blending the artistic conception of high mountains and flowing water with the heroic spirit in tea. It showcases the elegance and charm of the tea-fighting scene and also uses group dances to express the elegance, immortal bones, and Confucian style that are highly regarded in Chinese traditional culture.

They also showcased the exquisite tea-frying techniques with a reenactment of the traditional production of Wuyi rock tea. I think the most amazing part of Chinese dances is the choreography. I posted videos of the dances on my instagram page, if you're interested in watching them.

After the performance we found KinTea milk tea shop 🧋which has the most delicious milk tea I ever tried. Of course, because this area is the home of pure tea. Then we walked down this side street with tea culture shops one after another.

The sign in front of the shop literally means "drunken Wuyi." Of course probably drunk with milk tea. 😅 (And Wuyi is the name of the mountain.)

Breakfast at the hotel.

Over half of this wasn't even edible, but this is example of Chinese breakfast foods. 😄

A shared van picked us up and we joined a group tour where we rode to Wuyi national park. The tour guide helped everyone enter (only 8 people in the group), then we took a bus ride up part of the mountain to the place we could start hiking. The nature is so peaceful and the air so fresh to breathe.

The river is Jiuqu Xi (Nine-Bend stream).

Though I wrote on this picture that it's cinnamon, it actually might not be. There's so many tea plants in that area, I might've gotten them mixed up.

We continued hiking with the group till we came to Huanggang mountain, the highest peak in the Wuyi mountains. For those who don't want to climb the whole thing, there's a halfway point to stop and turn around. A few people hiked to the halfway spot and I was the only one to hike to the top.

Climbing to the top (around 40-50 minutes) is worth it to see the view. Reminds me of the Grand Canyon.

It took another 40-60 minutes to go back down. At the peak is Tianyou Temple (a Taoist temple built during the Song Dynasty and renovated during Mind dynasty) and many shops selling food and souvenirs.

For anyone not wanting to walk, they can pay to be carried in this chair. I feel bad for the people who have to climb the mountain with this thing. That's got to be difficult.

After the mountain we rode the bus to a small town where there are lots of small shops and the group ate lunch. Then we walked to take a bamboo raft ride down 9-Bend Stream. The scenery reminded me the most of Arizona with the rocks and trees. The water was calling me to go swimming but unfortunately that wasn't an option. 😆 But I did get wet from the water splashing onto the raft, then even more wet because it started raining hard but thankfully only lasted a short time.

I spied cameras in the trees...

When we landed, the guide led us to a walking street where she recommended we try the tea ice cream. No joking, this is my favorite ice cream I've ever tasted.

And of course I got milk tea to take back with me.

Then after that we were free to leave the group, so friend and I rode a free bus back to the walking street from the previous day and went to KinTea again to try another milk tea. 😂One tea was for that day, another tea was for the next day.