Huang Shan. 2 (黃山之二)

After getting off the cable car station, we had to walk  more than an hour to reach the place where we were to have lunch.

I had come for the snow. This is my first sight of the snow amongst the moss along a streambed.

"Celestial Being carrying a backpack" ( 仙人背袋)

Is this the famous "Two celestial beings playing chess "(仙人下棋)?

In the mean time, as earthly beings, we had to walk many many steps up and down  before we would reach our destination for lunch.

This is the so-called " Black Tiger Pine" more than 9 meters tall.Legend has it that a respected monk was doing some Buddhist meditation and during his trance-like state, saw a huge tiger perched on top of the tree but upon waking up, found this pine tree. Perhaps all he saw was the way some of its branches sat atop the tree, like a tiger with an arched back ready to pounce upon its prey below? 

Another view of the same pine tree, which has now to be propped up

Soon we arrived at a spot called "thread-like sky"  (一線天), where the path on the knife-edge ridge of the mountain was so narrow between two sheer drops on either side that it looked like a thread amidst the clouds.
 

Perhaps it was so called because there's a narrow crack between these two rocks in the crevice of which this huge pine had grown?

Another famous pine tree on our way to the hotel, called the "Unity Pine"  (團結松) with 6 trunks growing close to each other, which the former Chinese Premier Jiang Zeming said during a visit here in 2001 should symbolize the unity of all major ethnic groups in  China.

The water of the stream has become frozen

We found some small ice blocks at the side of the path.

A close up of the ice crystals

On the way, we passed this "Action-Knowledge Pavilion"  (行知亭), built in 1985 in honour of Tao Xing-zhi (陶行知) (1891-1946) a famous Chinese educationist from Anhui Province who advocated the idea that knowledge must ultimately comes from how we act in real life. He said that action is the father, knowledge the son and creation the grandson.it seems that nowadays his thoughts are shrouded by mist and fog.

Finally we arrived at the Brightness Top (光明頂) , another quarter of an hour to our lunch.   According to legend during the Ming Dynasty (1573 -1620), one day, a Buddhist monk called Pu Mun (普門)  who had been meditating here for some 15 years, suddenly "saw" the great Buddha, accompanied by the Koon Yin arriving at this spot, which instantly shone with incredible brightness. But not to us. Nothing but mist and fog!

All we saw were some young men climbing up the big boulder and other tourists

and what stood above us was not the Buddha nor the Koon Yin but a Meteorological Station.

  

The stone plague below the meteorological station explaining the legend

A tree with with leaves all drooping down with its buds on top at the side of the path

The path to the hotel is now well paved with steps made of granite which can be found everywhere around here. I remember the first time I went to Huang Shan in the 1980s, it was just a partly paved mud path.

At the side of the path is an enormous granite outcrop which stretches down  unbroken from the Bright Top for more than a hundred and fifty feet but somehow the pine trees find enough space between its cracks to shoot straight up!

The mountains outside our restaurant

Finally, the West Sea Huangshan Restaurant after walking up and down steps along the hillside for nearly two hours!

Outside the restaurant we found these "rimes" (霧凇), the frozen ice which envelops  the leaves of these pine and rocks. We were told that on average they can found in this area 63 days each year.

The "rime" on the leaves of the unknown plant similar to the one I saw earlier.

More "rime"

our hotel room