Roshley in PRC

This past weekend we visited Moganshan (莫干山) in Zhejiang Province. In honor of Ash’s birthday, we got together with 6 friends and planned a trip to a resort called Naked Retreats (no nudity involved). Since we stayed at a resort, traveled with friends who speak Chinese, and they booked a van to take us there and back, this was our first trip within China where travel was easy and we could relax and focus on enjoying the destination.

If you want to skip to the rest of the pictures, this link should take you there.

The pic above of us packing up the van is from about 7:45 PM on Friday. You can see me in the background, still in work clothes. The guy closest to the camera in the plaid blazer is our driver, who only spoke Chinese (thanks to Group One for translation assistance, if you’re reading this!). From here it was about a 3-hour drive to Moganshan, including a pit-stop at a highway rest stop. (We thought it would be horrifying, but it was pretty much the same as a highway rest stop in the US. So it was horrifying, but not unfamiliar.)

We did have some trouble finding the resort in the dark, and had to drive up a very windy, very foggy road to get there. Our driver got a bit frustrated and we had to call the resort for instructions a few times, but we finally got there. Then came the 300-step climb to our bungalow. It wasn’t fun with all our bags and groceries, but once we got there we were excited to see how cool the place was:

That night Ashley introduced everyone to Bananagrams, which turned out to be the most popular activity of the weekend. We stayed up pretty late playing a few competitive rounds before going to bed.

The next morning there were ayis (housekeepers) in our bungalow cleaning up after us and making breakfast, which came included with our stay. They made scrambled eggs, toast from homemade bread, bacon, and fried peppers, onions, and tomatoes. The ayis were really nice older ladies and told some of the girls that they were lucky to be bilingual and to have found white men to marry. I made it obvious how much of a “catch” I am by sitting there while they made me coffee and breakfast and then cleaned it all up afterward.

Actually the ayis also told us that when Shanghainese people come they don’t set foot in the kitchen—they let the ayis do everything. We preferred to do a little bit ourselves, and even made our own lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next day. (When I say “we,” I mean I helped eat everything.)

After lunch we took (what felt like) a long hike to the nunnery. The bamboo forest was beautiful. Weather was nice but started to get a little windy and wet toward the end of our hike back.

When we finally got to the nunnery we weren’t quite sure what to make of it. It was basically a small Buddhist temple, with one old man working (and living?) there. He gave us all candy, which none of us ate. I hope he doesn’t read this and get offended. Anyway, here are some pics of what we found there:

So after abstaining from the nunnery candy, we continued our hike to The Lodge, which is a bed & breakfast-type place very close to our bungalow. Apparently it’s owned by a guy who started That’s Shanghai, one of the most popular expat magazines in Shanghai. The kitchen was closed, but I got to try a new beer.

After that, it was back to the bungalow, where we made tacos and smores, played more Bananagrams and Twister, watched SNL with Alec Baldwin (hilarious, by the way), and finally called it a night. You can find pics of all of the above at Ash’s Picasa album.

All in all, it was a great trip, and we’d definitely do it again (maybe in winter). It was great to feel like we were breathing clean air, and to spend more of the daylight hours outside than in. Our calves are still sore from the hike, but even that feels pretty good.

Here’s one last pic of Roshley all dorked out in our hiking gear. (The spray-paint on the bamboo around us is a family’s way of marking that bamboo as their property, so that they get paid for it when it’s sold in town after growing for three years.) Will update the Google Map, and look for another post sometime soon. If not before, we’re now officially booked for a trip to Seoul in two weeks!

Tags: getaway, Mount Mogan, naked Retreats, near Shanghai, resort, weekend, with friends

This entry was posted on Monday, May 24th, 2010 at 7:45 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.