Thursday

Today was very much like yesterday, only slightly dryer.  We took a cable car to the top of a part of the mountain, a different cable car from yesterday, and at the top, was cloud banks.  We walked around up at the top for a bit, and took the cable car down, and then we walked along a stream called "The Golden Whip" which sounds to me like a good name for an S&M bondage club (not that I'd know anything about that).  The walk along the golden whip took about 2 hours.  After that, we took a bus to a weird little monorail train, and rode that through a section of the park in which we could see many giant rock formations rising up from the valley.  Today was special in that we saw wild rhesus monkeys coming out of the forest to beg for food off the tourists.  They can get really aggressive, so we did not feed them, but other did.  After hiking, we went out to dinner with our guide.  So, I'm tired now, and not really verbose, but I wanted to write a little record of what we did.
Little things to remember:
Jorg taking pictures with "minority girls"
The girls having another turn on a "Ferris Wheel" or as they call it here a "Tuijia Swing"
Monkeys in a cage begging for food handouts
Laina moaning about her wet feet
Min moaning about mosquito bites
Oily cucumbers for lunch, impossible to pick up with chop sticks
Wondering if I'm going to contract Schistosomiasis
People continually asking the girls if they speak Chinese...in Chinese.  And the girls, knowing full well what is being asked, refuse to answer.

Good:  Seeing some amazing scenery from the valley.
Bad:  wet socks, wet feet, wet wet wet....

Tomorrow:  Fenghuang (Phoenix City)

Note: sorry, no pictures today.  The camera is WAY over on the other side of the room, and if I go get it, I will not be able to make it back to the computer, because I will, instead collapse on the bed.