A Day in the Hills

Thanks to an important ancestor worship holiday, our busy busy Saturday classes were canceled. It couldn't have fell on a better day. After weeks of cold, wet dreariness (ahh the rainy season) we had one amazingly beautiful Saturday.

The high was at least in the mid-70's, the sun was out, and me and a few of my peers decided to make a day of it. We met just before noon to hike up the mountainside jutting out directly behind our office. It was an all day adventure. It took us a couple hours to reach the top, where we found ourselves completely free from the city below. In fact, if I had just been dropped out of a chopper and landed on this hillside, I would have had no idea there was massive city surrounding the rest of the island.

Along the way we stumbled across some old military training grounds, as well found ourselves in a small mountaintop village that seems to be mainly housing for the local army. We waved and said hello to the friendly soldiers as we watched dozens of them working dutifully in the well irrigated gardens that were laced through the town. While there, we got ourselves a deserved mountaintop lunch...free range duck and all. Very salty and very delicious!

Before we could head down the backside of the mountain, we knew we'd have to give the fishing pond a shot. It was great to find some peace and quiet even if we didn't manage to catch any fish. Some of the locals would occasionally walk by carrying sacks full of freshly caught fish and wearing big grins...God only knows what we were doing wrong. The poles were about as simple as they come...no fishing reel attached...and they would cast the pulls in an underhand manner. You can see the bait we used in one of the photos...we had two hooks on each line to attach the bait to. Strangely, the red clay looking bait smelled like a mix between fishiness and...strawberries! Not really sure what it all was though.

When we realized the sun was setting a bit too fast, we gave up our fishing poles and headed on down the mountain. An hour and half later we'd reached the beach on the backside of the mountain and were ready to go find ourselves a little beach side bbq.

Not a bad day off at all!

More as it comes.

Xiamen rests below