Day 27- Hike up Wudang Mountain

After a good night rest, it's time to conquer Wudang Mountain!



We endured the 1 hour winding journey up to the base of the mountain.



When we reached there, we were freezing but, when we started to hike up, homeostasis takes place.

At the base of the mountain

Stairs, stairs and more stairs

We climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed... My body is telling me: Sarah, noooo.... But, my mind is telling me: Keep going! This is so much like running.

While I was climbing up, I'm reminded of Daddy because I bet if he was there, this climb would be an easy one for him ( I guess) since he always conditions himself to this kind of high endurance situations when running. And if he was there, I'll make it a point to keep to his pace just like what I do if I ever run with him (which is so rare and if it ever happens, I always can't catch up with him :( ) . I suddenly just miss him and all the jokes and how he always teases mummy.

We've reached about 3/4 of the climb (I think) See the locks at the foreground of this pic? Those are the love locks.

More stairs to climb. We're almost reaching!

Towards the end, the steps become really steep and we had to be really careful because it was raining so the steps were slippery

Finally, we reached the peak of Mt Wudang!! :D

Nice pic? I cope from Geena because my hands were cold, numb and too painful to even take out my cam. The following pics are from Geena's cam.

Yan Fang, Me and Letty

My hair was so wet because of the rain and it's freezing up at the peak because of the howling wind.

You see that? The Golden Summit.

Walking down the stairs was not as tiring but I could still feel my legs wobbling and my knee caps and muscles aching.. Old liao..

After a total of 5 hours, we reached back to the base of the mountain. And guess what? Rani, Hana, Jasmin, Letty and I all bought ice-cream despite the cold weather! I shared my ice-cream with Letty. Seriously, ice-cream had never tasted that good :D Now I know why the stall holders sellice-cream there. Hahaha..

After the climb, we needed a good lunch. So we had lunch in a hotel restaurant.

Soon, we set off to our bus where we will be heading back to our dorm. Yay.

My shoes were wet and so were my socks.. kinda gross when you have to endure that for a 5 hour bus ride.

Finally, it's Dorm Sweet Dorm. And we had Mcdelivery for dinner :)

Reflection

I felt that the climb was a real challenge. It not only test our physical capability but also how perservering our powerful mind is. Despite all the body aches and discomfort, we need to press on in order to reach the peak. I personally felt it was a great experience as we put our mind to the test and when we reached our goal, it feels like an achievement.

As I was climbing up the stairs, I saw hard labour. Why? Becuase I saw how an elderly man slowly, carefully and maybe even painfully climb up the stairs with a heavy load of about 100kg on his shoulders. My heart goes out to him. In order to earn a living, he needs to climb the stairs to deliver the goods. And not only that, on our way down, I saw him carrying another load. This time he was carrying gas canisters. This is so unbelievable! Even youngsters like us won't be able to climb the stairs twice in a day. What more to say for an elderly man? This really makes me appreciate the life I have and how much easier it is to earn a living in Singapore (rather than a physically challenging job) We must learn to cherish what we have and stop complaining.

Another scenario is when an old lady would press on to climb up the stairs with a heavy load to pray in the temple at the top. These people are so religious and they would rather be physically tired and worn-out then to not pray to their god(s).

I've learnt a lot throughout this climb today.