Today was the most exhausting day of the trip by far. We went to Fragrant Hill, which by all means should have been called Fragrant Mountain. It took us about an hour to climb all the way to the top! The scenery was beautiful, but it was hard to notice while I was climbing. There were a few times where I wanted to give up, but it would have been almost as much work to trek down the mountain as it would have been to finish the climb. I’m really glad I decided to walk and I felt really accomplished when I reached the top (1827 feet)!
When we reached the top we all bought red ribbons for things like health, marriage, career, etc, and tied them to this tree that already had thousands of ribbons attached. It was a very strange sight to see. After catching our breath at the top, we had to make our way down. Instead of taking the winding path we followed on the way up, Dr. Gao opted for the more ‘direct route,’ which basically meant a ton of very steep stairs. The descent was much faster than the climb (about 20 mins) mainly because I would get a lot of momentum and pretty much run down the stairs at an alarming rate. I hoped and prayed that I wouldn’t slip and smash my head on the rocks and I nearly did so a few times. Climbing the mountain is something I’ll never forget.
After the mountain, we went to eat Peking duck. It was delicious. The restaurant was super fancy and I really liked everything we ordered. I even tried a little bit of duck brain! I’m really glad our table wasn’t squeamish. After a short break we went back to Wafujing Street to barter and eat scorpions. Yes I did eat a scorpion and it was delicious. It’s really nice to be open-minded when it comes to food, and now I’m willing to try pretty much anything.