Qing Cheng Shan

Today we took a field trip to a mountain called Qing Cheng Shan (Green City Mountain). With my limited writing skills I will use the Hanzi to express what I did in Chinese. I hope you will be able to follow. Here goes...

Today we got on a bus. One of our LCFs found a microphone...



Our teacher then called people to the front of the bus. Jonny and Keri sang a lovely duet...



After which Jonny sang a single, solo verse of a song that went... "I'm proud to be an American...and I'd gladly stand up...God bless the USA."

Our destination was Qing Cheng 山 (there's the Hanzi!). The 山 was about 1260 meters and it was paved the entire way (many, many steps). There were a lot of people and I experienced, for the first time ever, a traffic jam of people on a nature trail. Here are two pictures of people working at one of the ubiquitious temples...





There were also hundreds of candles with incredibly thick, strong wicks which burned with fury as the wind blew through the temple...



I tamed a wild, fanged turtle while these people looked on with approval.



And, farther up the 山, Kehl found a stick-like insect. They were so many of these creatures that I cannot begin to describe the high number of casualties along the steps (trail).



We encountered innumerable signs with warnings and advice, such as...



And...



Which, according to the Random House Dictionary, is a noun...

slung shot
–noun
a weight, as a stone or a piece of metal, fastened to a short strap, chain, or the like, and used as a weapon.

Needless to say, we were scanning the treelines for suspicious activities. Later we realized that this referred to the overhanging rocks. In fact, the trail became narrow in this area, a girl stopped in front of us to take a picture with her telephone, and I yelled, "Do not linger under the slung!" She seemed to know what I meant and we hurried to safety. One nice thing about the overhanging rock was the cover it provided (it was raining).

We found these many locks, which Kehl said was featured on "The Amazing Race." I forgot what they mean exactly...



And, finally, we reached the top of the 山...



Because it was raining, we decided to take the cable car down...





And the Ferry across the lake (which was also pulled by a cable).



And that was our wonderful day at the 山. I guess this has been less an opportunity to write in Hanzi, and more of a cloze activity for you: What exactly does 山 mean?