Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Moganshan 莫干山
Moganshan, a mountain in China.
Ah, the weekend excursions available from Shanghai. Last weekend we loaded a bus with 14 other cyclists, 16 mountain bikes and a little Shanghai dog to spend some time in Moganshan. Located in Western Zhejiang province, Moganshan is a highly touristed bamboo mountain that used to be the escape for 1930's foreign ambassadors to Shanghai. The top of the mountain (now all standard Chinese hotels) was once full of European houses and churches. I learned all this from a girl on the trip, but didn't really take the chance to look for remnants of that time when we finally made it to the top - it turned out to be a pretty steep climb!
Like I mentioned, we brought our bikes. This was kind of the kick-off training weekend for our planned bike trip in Tibet, and we needed some hills! We stayed at the base of the mountain, and pretty much rode up, down, up, down both days we were there. On the way there, Tim and I discussed our expectations: he dreamed of single track through the woods, I cynically predicted riding up on pavement and then a kamikaze-style descent down the steepest part. Tim will post the pictures soon on our Flickr site.
I also learned something about China that will help me to handle situations like the death descent better in the future. I am reading a book now called "how to stop worrying and start living" by Dale Carnegie. It is an old book, but with a lot of useful information, even for living in China. For example, steps to avoiding worry/frustration/anxiety:
1. Think of what is the worst thing that could possibly happen.
2. Accept the worst.
3. Now that you accepted the worst, think of ways to improve the situation. There's nowhere to go but up!
Now, these concepts applied to a real-life Chinese situation:
1. We could end up getting lost, riding 4 times as far as we planned and be out past dark, hungry and tired, even though we are setting out at noon.
2. Accepted (after all this is China)
3. Pack gloves, money, headlamp, extra Clif bars and cell phone.
At least we were warm on the way down the dark side of the mountain at 7pm :-)
We had beautiful weather, and after following steps 1-3 had a great weekend.
Ah, the weekend excursions available from Shanghai. Last weekend we loaded a bus with 14 other cyclists, 16 mountain bikes and a little Shanghai dog to spend some time in Moganshan. Located in Western Zhejiang province, Moganshan is a highly touristed bamboo mountain that used to be the escape for 1930's foreign ambassadors to Shanghai. The top of the mountain (now all standard Chinese hotels) was once full of European houses and churches. I learned all this from a girl on the trip, but didn't really take the chance to look for remnants of that time when we finally made it to the top - it turned out to be a pretty steep climb!
Like I mentioned, we brought our bikes. This was kind of the kick-off training weekend for our planned bike trip in Tibet, and we needed some hills! We stayed at the base of the mountain, and pretty much rode up, down, up, down both days we were there. On the way there, Tim and I discussed our expectations: he dreamed of single track through the woods, I cynically predicted riding up on pavement and then a kamikaze-style descent down the steepest part. Tim will post the pictures soon on our Flickr site.
I also learned something about China that will help me to handle situations like the death descent better in the future. I am reading a book now called "how to stop worrying and start living" by Dale Carnegie. It is an old book, but with a lot of useful information, even for living in China. For example, steps to avoiding worry/frustration/anxiety:
1. Think of what is the worst thing that could possibly happen.
2. Accept the worst.
3. Now that you accepted the worst, think of ways to improve the situation. There's nowhere to go but up!
Now, these concepts applied to a real-life Chinese situation:
1. We could end up getting lost, riding 4 times as far as we planned and be out past dark, hungry and tired, even though we are setting out at noon.
2. Accepted (after all this is China)
3. Pack gloves, money, headlamp, extra Clif bars and cell phone.
At least we were warm on the way down the dark side of the mountain at 7pm :-)
We had beautiful weather, and after following steps 1-3 had a great weekend.
# posted by Laurel @ 6:07 PM 
Photos on Flickr
RSS Feed