I arrived to Yaqing. I got into the car with a monk at Baiyu. They loaded the car full of as full of stuff inside and outside the car. A cute old couple sat in the back and I sat next to two men. We drove the full four hours to a small town.  I arrived and immediately the group started to jump out of the car to pick up the small black caterpillars. I had no idea what they were doing. Eventually, I realized they were saving the caterpillars from being run over in the road. I went to Yaqing hotel, which only had rooms for 120. I had lunch in the little chine restaurant next door. I ended up walking across the campus to a different hotel which allowed me to sleep upstairs in their cafeteria for only 25 kuai. I was going to sleep on their maroon I passed by the temple which had a loudspeaker of some of the people chanting inside. It reminded me of some of the muslim areas that I had visited. Then I got to the hostel. I slept on some of their chairs.

After I checked in, I headed to the main monestary again where I heard the chanting and I took photographs. The entire hall was full of monks. I had no idea what was going on or if this was a normal occurrence. They were all chanting in unison with the buddhas all over the walls. I watched them get served yogurt and tea, and then they arranged the small round things with the rice, fuck I forget what all of this stuff is called. I sat there for an hour or more with them while they chanted. It was truly incredible. Afterwards,  I went to get some snacks and ended up getting some sweets from a handmade Chinese sweet shop. They were tasty. I walked over to the area with the nuns and as I arrived and sat down, shortly afterwards they all got up, so I followed them. They began to line up and there were a few ladies in the front with conch shells and the large reed instruments. They started walking, and lining up, all of the nuns came out of the temple together and threw on a yellow shawl. They started walking somewhere, and I had no idea where they were going. We walked around the field together with the oboes blaring. It was a big circle.  There was a big festival happening for the death of a famous lama. So there were more than the usual people here. Afterwards I went to eat dinner and a nice Tibetan girl sat with me and ate dinner. Then I went to sleep. I woke up in the morning and went back to the temple and then to the nunnery. I sat with the nuns and they offered me some of their tea. I left and went to a temple where they were offering butter lamps. I ate some noodles for breakfast. I went and did some prayer wheels. I went back to the hostel for a moment and then decided to leave because they were burning plastic in the wood burning stove again. I had to get up so I left to explore some more buildings, and eventually got some baozi snacks and fried bread. After a while of resting then I took a long walk over to the neighboring village which was made in a rock quarry. They had a lot of rocks they were pounding into smaller piece with axes. I wanted to see the small temples up there, but it seems that it had disappeared once I got over there. I got a ride back to the temple. I walked to some of the temples that I hadn’t seen yet, like the lama’s temples and their paraphernalia. I walked to the top where guru Rinpoche was and watched the nuns circle around the grasslands from the hill above. I wanted to see the head lama of the temple speak and then I walked around until he started class. I attended class for a short while. Then I went to get a closer look at the main temple now that all of the people were gone. It was beautiful. There was still rice on the floor.. I tried to similarly see the nunnery but it was closed.

I got to Chengdu and walked around in the park. I got sick in the car because one of the men was smoking like a chain smoker and there was a young girl who was sick. I read a book and processed some photos on the train. I ended up catching her cold and wanted to sleep in the hostel in Chengdu for the rest of the day, but instead I got a coffee and wanted to go for  a walk and process photos. I walked around a tiny market across the street and next to the Wuhousi temple. Since I found the history of Wuhou si unappealing for the ticket price, I decided to walk down the market street next to it. Jinli alley or something like  that which had a lot of interesting boutique shops, but nothing unlike the same exact street in Beijing or Shanghai that the tourists walk down. I walked a street parallel to the one where the hostel was and it was filled with Tibetan shops and restaurants. I ate at a pure tibeetan restaurant and had some beef soup and a small bread that was like a thick pancake mantou, but overall very tasty and somewhat fluffy and dense. After that I did eventually go back to the hostel and did some processing, and fell asleep at normal time. I went to Kangding the next day on the bus. I arrived and was too tired to do much of anything, but I managed to check into the hostel and go walk around town to a Tibetan restaurant, which was on the 6^th floor of an apartment building, but inside was a lavish Tibetan decorations. I didn’t sleep all night due to bed bugs in the room. The food was a buckwheat beef soup, and some beef, potatoe, and rice. I was still sick and tired. The next day I woke up late feeling still a little sick and went to the two temples in town, Wufasi, which were both incredible works of art. I walked the wrong road to get there, which was actually a highway, and the huge loaded semi’s filled with construction materials were annoying and troubling. The city as well was going through tons of construction. I was quite impressed. I went back to the hostel and slept for a few hours due to lack of sleep the night before. I woke up and went to the hot springs. I soaked for an hour and had a very deep meditation. I was quite impressed.

I had dinner at a Mao Cai restaurant and then ended up going back for another hour long soak which helped cleanse my skin immensely. I got on the bus the next day to go to Dege. The ride was incredible, and one of the best rides I have ever taken. The landscape was stunning green rolling hills dotted with the kham style Tibetan buildings. It was like Tibetan mansions and grasslands and hilly mountains, which then grew to being terrifying huge mountains and a drop off of hundreds of meters down the side of the mountain in a bus. I enjoyed the ride so much watching the temples and houses go by, the herds of yaks getting in the way and the azure lakes in the distance, which were breathtaking in such nice weather. I only wished I had my camera, but some parts of it were so amazing I might never forget. I had never seen Kham before, so the difference between Amdo was really obvious. I had no idea they were so drastically different. I got to Dege and the whole place was a huge construction site, and there were a few traditional houses, but for the most part the majority of the small valley had been converted to apartment buildings and hotels. I was stayed in a really terrible hostel with no security and didn’t feel safe there. I left in the morning to go to Baiyu. I got there and it took over an hour to find a hotel for less than 50 kuai after the temple told me there was no guesthouse there. I spent the entire afternoon at the temple and a few of the monks befriended me. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to buddy up to the monks here because of the language barrier, but we did quite well. One of the monks helped me open all the doors to the temple, and told me about the latest reincarnation that lived on the temple on the top of the mountain. The schedule was strict for weekend visitations only and it was Wednesday. It was incredible to see all of the deities, especially Padmasambhava, whom I hadn’t been seen by in deity form since the US. The reconstructions were so beautiful. I ate a traditional Tibetan pot pie and some milk tea for dinner. I’m heading to yaqing si tomorrow hopefully and then onward to ganzi, Dzogchen monestary, and then the litang horse racing festival.

After Wudang Shan, I went to go get on the train to go to Luoyang. I got on the train with no problems. I made it to Luoyang and the heartland international hostel was perfect. Shaolin temple was a two hour bus trip and I decided to go the next day for three days. I should have simply taken the bus directly from the train station which is adjacent to the bus station. I thought I would go to Luoyang grottos or do something, but with costs these days and budgets I decided to simply stay in the hostel. I got a bus ticket to Dengfeng where the next hostel would be at. I arrived to the hostel and ate lunch at a noodle restaurant next door. I took the bus to the Zhongyue temple, which is one of the earliest Daoist temples. I toured the entire complex and stayed for the ceremony in the evening. Afterwards, I visited the temples across the street which were little old ladies houses and properties that they unlocked to show a deity of Wangmu Niang Niang with a big pot of tang, and some other lady deities. Then I went behind the Zhongyue temple where there were numerous other temples like the Long wang temple, and a few other small neighboring temples. Then there were nice nature hikes behind the temple, and a pavilion up on the hill, which I hiked up to and found a monk stringing the beads for the hat for Zhongyue. He was strict with me about not taking photos, but they all say that and so I record video in secret. I looked around and then sat down and chatted with him for a few moments about school and what I was doing with my life. He seemed to take good care of the temple. I hiked back down and got on the bus. 15 minutes into the bus ride it started torrential rainfall for several minutes. I got off the bus just as it ended and went back to the hostel, satisfied with my half day of exploration.

 I decided the next day to visit Shaolin Monestary. There was a group from the hostel who were all going together so there was a car ready for us. We got dropped off in the back part of the complex and hiked in for 5 hours to get to the temple. I stayed with the group for a while, and then left the group to walk on my own, at times meeting up with them. I managed to go a lot faster than them by 15 minutes, and saw them at lunch. One of the older Chinese guys was fun to talk to in Chinese about various things in life.  I enjoyed his company, and he was slightly annoying. I can’t seem to find Chinese men attractive at all. Most of them I could never imagine being in a relationship with. I don’t understand how so many American men can date Chinese women. I have no interest in the Chinese men I meet either physically or socially. I never feel like I’m going to meet someone here and the environment is really polluted and toxic. The scenery is spectacular on the trail here in this moment, but it is cloudy, and I know there’s a lot of ambient pollution in the air. I walk alone down the trail past the men making the new railing for the side. They are soldering some of the rods together to build the railing piling concrete. It seems like a horror movie trying to run through the construction site with the sparks flying everywhere, and it happened to be in the darker part of the mountain where the stream was. If I was a young child, I would have been scared to death to cross the site as it seemed dangerous with no care for the pedestrians or the workers. There are amazing geological formations and cliffs in the area. It was so fascinating to see and the fog had receded enough to see the view of the landscape. The temples on the outcroppings and all of the spectacular rock formations. I’m still amazed by what I saw there. It is truly incredible. After several hours of hiking there was finally the pagoda forest, and then the shaolin temple. I toured the temple and then joined in the ceremony for the evening full moon ceremony. The monks were wearing bright orange robes and on the full moon, the hall is filed with monks, so there are not only the 5 people chatting as usual, but more like 20 or so chanting. The abbot let me into the hall, and I was the only one participating who was not part of the temple. I was let in beyond the barriers for the tourists. I stayed there chanting with the monks for 20 minutes. It was incredible to be in the temple with them standing there. I did manage to make a small video. I was the only female and the only foreigner in the hall. As I was leaving the temple I joked with some monks about becoming the first foreign lady to join the temple, after they told me that females were not allowed to join and the complex was only for males I had to tease a bit. Then I told them I was joking and not even interested. I think it would be too physically demanding because of how they train their bones it can be very traumatic. I’ve seen so many shaolin performances since having come to China and they are mostly young guys with incredible ability trained since they were young. Many of the monks I talked to were my age, and had come to the temple only a few years before, so many of them do live there to train later in life as well. It seems like those who really want to live there can live there and train if they like to work that way and live a humble life of a monk. After I left the temple, I came to the training grounds for the young boys. There were three boxing rings setup and then hundreds of young boys wearing read uniforms sitting in chairs or bleachers. There were fights going on and everyone was watching. The fighting seemed really unprofessional, with a lot of dirty moves that I couldn’t even stand to watch, so I left and walked out. I got a shuttle bus back into town, and then the bus back to the hostel before dark. 

The next day I went to the Taichishan part of the mountain which was across from the hostel. I thought I was going to Confucius’s old academy, but had taken a wrong turn and wound up going up the mountain immediately skipping the academy. It was a long walk in and I finally reached a couple of Taoist temples run by a few old ladies. I got to the ticket office and paid 50 kuai to get into the main part of the mountain. The first temple complex was for Laomu cave, in which there were several incredible deities. The ladies in the temple wanted to know why Americans hated China and we immediately got into a heated conversation. They let me look around at the temple caves. There were people outside burning huge offerings in the urns. This temple seemed very active, with many people and paraphraneilia. I told the ladies Americans liked the Chinese, but they had to defend the islands that belonged to other countries like the Philippines. I said that most Americans felt good about Chinese people in general. Then they gave me a huge bag of fruit and snacks. I was confused why they gave me so much fruit and snacks to eat when I had to hike up the mountain. They told me it was an apple for peace, which pingguo for pingan sound the same in Chinese. So it was sweet for them to offer me so many things. I started to walk up to the next temple feeling quite weighed down by the snacks. I got to the temple upstairs with a huge temple for Laozi. The monk was very nice to me and when it started pouring down rain we got to chatting. I couldn’t always understand what he was saying. He gave me a dragon fruit and I ate it. He saw I had a huge bag of snacks. I have no idea why he gave me the fruit after I told him about the snacks. I thought it was funny. The rain poured for a while and he tried to talk me out of hiking the mountain, but I went anyway. I’m happy it was raining because it is so much cooler and nicer to enjoy the weather that way. Hiking up the mountain there were many other Taoist temples, and one in particular that sat on a waterfall. After several hours of hiking I made it to the 1400 ft summit. It was completely overcast. I met up with the same guy I had met the day before and he followed me around like a puppy again. Eventually we split ways when we had found the trail. I ended up following the advice of two girls who said they were going down the mountain. Apparently they were wrong, and we ended up at a cave. The water started pouring so badly that I stayed in the temple with a few ladies and we talked for a long time about university life in the US where their friends kids were at. We talked for nearly a half an hour about the schools and about my life, simple questions usually, always the same kind of stuff. They are always curious about me when they realize I can speak Chinese. After the rain the clouds had broken and I could see the view. It was an incredible view of the cityscape of Dengfeng below. I hurried down the mountain as fast as possible because of the rain, and taking a few photos of the now visible landscape. I met up with my friend who invited me to dinner that night. We spent a few hours getting off the mountain crossing the ferocious rivers. We went to hotpot. He got a bottle of wine. We went to get foot massage. I fell asleep. He tried to forcibly kiss me and I pushed him away. It’s terrible how men act when they are pushy and have no manners. Men need to learn how to get consent or at least ask. Awful manners. I was in a bad mood after that. I fell asleep at the hostel.

I woke up in the night short of breath again. I think the vents in the ceiling are pumping in air from outside so the air purifier has to work overtime. I got up and sat down next to my tea set in a room torn apart with clothes everywhere. At least my bags were packed for the trip I had booked tickets for only the night before. I boiled some water and made some lemon tea, which I drank religiously every morning. 

I got into the taxi, and we drove to the Beijing west station early in the morning. The 150ppm smog enveloped me as I walked outside to the escalator to the long lines of the ticketing booth. I was happy to be finally leaving Beijing. The train to Xian is only 5 or 6 hours, and I had gotten a cheap seat on the train. The train tickets are reasonable for the high speed train. I spent the morning going through the train security at the and waiting an hour for the train to leave within the crowded train station.

 Finally, I boarded the train, and spent most of the morning sleeping. I tried to do some work on my computer but eventually drifted off to sleep again and again sleeping. The train rolled by several hours through a thick smog. I left Beijing on account of the summer season’s unusually wet weather and smog. I felt depressed and trapped living in a toxic place. Although there are many other people suffering through the 150ppm smog, I felt glued to my air purifier. I had read several articles about the health risks, and after four years, I incur a definite chest ache and overall unease with being there. Sometimes the weather is unusually dry and holds as much smog in the air, which is traumatic day after day.

We got to the Huashan station after 5 hours and I saw the mountain from out the window. I contemplated jumping out of the train at that very moment. It could have been my chance to go early had I not hesitated too long. By the time I got to the door with my carryon luggage, it was too late. The door was beeping to close and I was on my way to Xian, which was another hour away. The weather was perfect that day, and the mountains looked incredible. I was planning on going to Xian to go to the hostel because I didn’t know that the train passed through Huashan station on the way. I was heading to Huashan the next day.

 I arrived to Xian and went to the hostel I already booked. I finally got there, and realized how inconvenient of a location it was for me to only be staying the night. I went back to a hostel I had stayed at previously and luckily there was one bed left in the dormitory for around 6 or 7 dollars. It’s a nice hostel with reasonable accommodations and right next to the south entrance to the city wall which runs around the entire city. There’s a bar and restaurant that serves western style food downstairs and that’s also decent prices. I had stayed in the hostel when I worked as a tour guide for some high school students last year, so I knew it was a good place.

 Although it was too late in the day to head to Louguantai, the place where Laozi transmitted the Daodejing… I still had some time to wander through the Muslim quarter of the city, which was a complete fiasco of people, mainly tourists. I enjoy the Muslim quarter of Xi’an because of the history, and the old mosques. I ate at a restaurant and got a baked eggplant and some of the naan bread. I also got some rice sweet on a stick that seems like a local food. I wandered down the shopping street and passed by many mosques. For some reason, despite having slept most of the day on the train. I was exhausted and went back to the hostel. On the way, an interesting guy approached me and started talking to me. We chatted in Chinese for around an hour on my walk back to the hostel. I had gone out of my way and he helped me with the directions. He also tried to show me the city God temple, which was unfortunately closed. He was telling me that they built the two subway lines in 2013 and 2014, and they are currently building more subway lines. He said the development was fast, but long overdue. He told me about his family in the country and that he moved to the city to work and make money. I asked him why he chose to live in the city when it was soo polluted, but he seemed to think that the country life was too poor and too slow. He wanted more opportunity in life so he moved to the city. I got back to the hostel and got on my computer to arrange the trip to Huashan, which I felt was cursed because I didn’t get off the train in time. I fell asleep and awoke the next morning to plan to leave. I went to buy a hat and some fruit for the trip and headed to the train station. I had to wait an hour and a half for the train, which would then take another half an hour to an hour to arrive to Huashan. It was a long wait, and I realized that I would be arriving at Huashan at the same time or later than the previous day. It felt like a big mistake to have missed the chance to hop off early.

After I arrived at the station, my cursed feelings intensified as there were indeed multiple hotels and lodging options to my dismay. I read on the internet that the lodging was hard to get, but here it seemed plentiful, and since I’m fluent in Chinese, getting a place would have been no problem. After arriving, then I walked outside to take a free shuttle to the mountain that I read about. It was a green shuttle service in front of the station apparently. I walked over to where I saw one bus drive by, and started to talk to the taxi drivers. The guy I was talking to wanted to take me for 20 kuai, and I declined and asked him about the free shuttle. He said I would have to wait an hour for the shuttle and others were also waiting. He said then it would take even longer to get there. He really was trying to get me to take his cab there. I talked and talked in Chinese with him about getting there and which buses go there, and was just about to cave and take the cab when another guy told me to walk 100 ft to the shuttle, which was hidden behind a bunch of trees. When I got to the shuttle then it was a long wait, and I had a feeling I missed the previous shuttle talking to the driver. The guy was heading into town or somewhere nearby and offered to drop me off for free, so I got in the taxi with him and the driver. Oftentimes, I worry about situations like that being a setup to kidnap me, but at a certain point China is safe and the guy seemed so totally harmless I would have been really surprised.

We took a five to ten minute drive and then I was at the base of the mountain. I went in and paid the 180 kuai entrance fee, which they do discount if you are an undergraduate student only,  since I’m a phD student they would not discount the fee. I bought a map of the area for 10 kuai and headed to a shuttle to the spot to hike in. I met a nice young guy on the shuttle who had just completed the hike and went up and down in one day starting at 6am. He was so enthusiastic to share with me his experience of getting up and down the mountain and helped me figure out on the map where to walk and how to approach everything. He arrived and I departed the train, taking a small road to the right of the entrance to walk in around the big complex at the beginning of the trail.

 I started walking up and crossed a river where there were many families taking rest in the water, and then began to reach the Daoist temples and caves scattered on the mountain. Since I started around 3:45 to climb, then some of the monks in the temples were reading the evening prayers. The first monk was there simply hitting a bell and reading. Then I got to the next temple and two young guys were chanting wearing gold robes. It was beautiful and something I had never seen before. I continued to climb the mountain on the designated trails, many of which were lined with chains covered in red ribbons and golden locks, which contrasted with the green. Cicadas were hissing loudly. I reached many of the steep cliff faces that Huashan is famous for. There are stairs on extremely steep mountains that are to be climbed carefully while holding the chains. The views started to get better and better. Since I was hiking alone, it was a great time to be in nature and readjust to hiking. The semester at school had finished and I was happy to take a break. I hiked up the stairs and slopes, sometimes stopping to eat fruits and snacks at the stalls on the way. There were many men running garbage down the hill. They would fill bags with plastic bottles and run them down. There are many small caves and temples along the way which seem to be cared for by ladies and monks. I would bow and take photos as much as I could. Here were Chinese characters carved into the rocks and painted.

 I climbed up the stairs and hiked up the mountain admiring the views, and terrified of the heights. There were multiple drop offs which are terrifying to stand on the edge of. Standing on the edge of the precipice I’m reminded how insignificant my fear of heights really is. It’s one of my biggest phobias and being alone on the hike intensified what I felt as danger of falling. I enjoyed the rush and feeling.

Eventually, after three hours I reached the North Peak, and decided to stay there for the night before hiking to east peak. I heard that the sunrise at east peak is incredible, but did not have the energy to climb another two hours to the top of the next peak. I talked to the girls running the hostel and I got one bed for 100 kuai. I ate dinner there, which was a great mix of broccoli, yam, and rice, and made myself lemon tea. The water on the mountain is not free, unless you are staying at the hostel, and then they have plenty to offer. I talked to one monk about the chanting at the temple, and asked him if they had a service in the morning. He told me that they practice in the morning, but he doesn’t chant. He does taichi. I was told by the hostel that I would be woken up at 3:30 am to watch the sunrise, for those wanting to hike up the mountain to the top to watch it. I fell asleep in the 16 bed dormitory with the other foreigners. It was loud and crowded I thought. There were a lot of big guy is there who were snoring and it smelled bad. If I had more money I would have paid 200 kuai for a tent or paid for a private room. I also didn’t sleep well because of the stress from the hike. There is a 24 hour foot massage and café place that is great.

vPeople hike the mountain during all hours of the night and day. Students especially enjoy hiking at night and the entire trail is covered in lights. I took some photos at dusk and did some stretching and yoga on the deck. In the morning I returned to the same empty deck to watch the sunrise, while the others were all crowded on the main area. I was happy to have discovered such a secret place without others. The sunrise barely was visible because of cloud cover, so I went back to sleep for a few hours. I woke up and had breakfast in the restaurant for 25 kuai, and it was a simple dish of beans and celery and some soup, and a piece of mantou bread.  

 I started out on the hike to the east peak. This is the part most people climb because there is a cable car from the bottom to this north part of the peak. Most people then climb to the east peak. So it’s the main part of the complex, with many scenic areas to see and temples along the way. The first temple I visited was the dragon king temple, and I had never seen this particular deity before. Then there was a very steep area to climb for several hundred meters of stairs. There were chains on both sides hanging so the climbers could easily grasp the handles. I found myself wanting to turn around and take photos of the view, which got better and better until I reached the top and witnessed the view. It was incredible. Along the way a Chinese family grilled me with questions when they realized I was fluent in Chinese, and that’s always fun and annoying. I got to the top to the east peak and it had gotten very cloudy and overcast due to the weather. I felt again disappointed that I hadn’t started out a day earlier. The most spectacular views are seen from the top, and a lot of it was covered in fog. Regardless of that, the fog was gradually receding and I could still see a lot of the cliffs and steep desents. It was incredible and terrifying from the top. The cliffs are straight drop offs and looking down into the valleys below really brought me deeper into the Taoist philosophy and religion overall. I didn’t realize that height and hanging over the precipice was such an integral part of their sacred mountains. I enjoyed standing at certain spots and feeling as though I was free falling over the edge. The feeling was like flying and falling, but I was going no where. Certain spots seemed to pull me into a vortex from which I could barely move forward even a tiny bit. Overall, the place is very safe with plenty of hand holds and chains. There were parts of it where it required a bungee cable connected to the chain and a guide to go down further. I declined these parts of the mountain, unsure of the climb. I had my bags and wanted to head back sooner than later to ensure a timely arrival to the base of the mountain where the old Taoist Yuquan Jade spring temple was. They only held the afternoon ceremony there, and I wanted to be sure to see it. By the time I went to descend the mountain, it was perfect timing. I had taken my time wandering through the various temples and caves, seeing the deities. I wandered to the various lookouts and looked over the edge and snapped a few photos. Part of the novelty of being there were the wooden plank walks and being chained to a bungee cord. Since it had become increasingly overcast, I had given up on trying to feel the dropping. Instead, I got into the cable car from west peak back to the bottom. That was the most terrifying part of my entire trip. I felt like I had done something crazy and stupid by riding in a cheaply made Chinese cable car. I thought I was surely going to fall to my death with the others in the car. It was so high up, and we went over huge valleys off the mountain. I was scared for my life and so was the family in the car with me. The young girl was only about 6 and nearly started crying when the car stopped for a second because of the winds.

Finally we reached the bottom, and I was relieved. Afterwards I caught the shuttle back to the temple area, and arrived around 4pm thinking I was late for the ceremony. Luckily for me it really started at 4:30, so I got to have tea and chat with one of the monks who was there. He was trying to tell me about the deity statue that was there, and he was the founder of QuanZhen Taoism, or something about he was the one who started the Huashan branch of Daoism. I hadn’t seen the majority of the temple at that point. I rushed to the ceremony and the monks all arrived. I had never seen the Daoist chanting before. It was sweet. I took some photos and videos excited by the experience. Afterwards I wandered throughout the temple and noticed that the monks who were the guardians of the temples had similar appearances to the deities. I think the abbot of the temple does it on purpose. It was almost comical at certain temples how similar the priests or priestesses looked in comparison.

On my way out, I missed the chance to visit Xiyue temple because I hadn’t planned enough to know where it was. It’s closer to the town of huashan. It was closed by the time I had gotten there, but could easily be included in an iterinary first before visiting the mountain.

I got on the train and headed back to Xi’an where I had booked a hostel for the night. I checked email and went to sleep.