Summer Outing

This weekend I went to BuYun mountain and BingYu valley near a town called XianRenDong along with around 300 co-workers. The trip took a little over three hours by bus, and here are some pictures -

Here are some of us gathering in front of the office in the morning before the bus ride out...



This is during the bus ride out of Dalian. Most of the countryside north of Dalian is farmland...



... and big rice paddies...



More than half way there we stopped for a quick break. I bet who ever cleans the bathroom at this place hates seeing 7 busses pull up.



...back on the road. Eventually the farmland started giving way to mountains, so we new we were close.



Here we are at our hotel in XianRenDong. It's not the greatest hotel, but it is the only one that can handle 300 guests. The rooms hold anywhere from 2 to 5 guests and come with beds and a TV. Everyone on each floor shares a single bathroom and there are no showers. Ritz Carlton it is not.



Here's lovely downtown XianRenDong and one of the horse handlers. There were about a dozen of these guys who would let you ride their horse for a few minutes for 20 RMB.



After lunch we headed up to the mountain. Good thing it wasn't crowded...



Anways, it was very scenic...



They also had a little buddhist shrine. Those big sticks there in front are incense you could buy, but no one seemed to be buying any.



Here's a nice little walkway along the river. Nice place to take a picture...



Let's follow this crowd. They look like they know where they're going...



Along this part of the river there are two ways across. The slippery rock bridge...



... or the rickety wooden bridge...



Here's a look back after taking a small boat along another part of the river...



Ok, who let the decedant western capitalist in?



Towards the end there is this little waterfall that was pretty neat. There's a walkway underneath it, and that's how you cross the river back.



That's about it for the pictures. I also took a bunch of video and I am going to try and edit those and upload them some how.

Saturday night we returned to XianRenDong and had a party. The hotel got us some lambs and cooked them over a big fire out in the street and we all sang, danced, and drank beer until everyone decided to go try and watch the World Cup... where we proceeded to drink more beer until the early morning (USA vs Italy was at 3:00am!).

The next day we all headed out to some hot springs nearby town. Everyone was pretty much beat from the day and night before so that most people just hung around and relaxed. It seemed everyone slept on the bus ride back to town. I know I did!