^ Click to embiggen! I command thee.
( middle-left of the image, the big-ass chinese-looking building. Thats a Buddhist mausaleum. In the middle of the image, check the huuuuge bridge. Hills to the left, hills to the right, standing in the middle of a valley. )
Okay, now that you get the idea. April fool's day morning I spent skating. I bombed it up and down from the university twice in the morning, met up with Beryl, skates some more, and my legs were just about dead when I met up with Fran to head out to the reservoir for a whole lot of walking / hiking.
^ The area around the reservoir is farm land, fed by lots of these little streams.
^ Pretty small "fields" of crops, but very, very bright flowers - the camera doesn't do the brightness justice.
^ A couple of rural folk doing their farming thing.
^ The name of the reservoir dug into the side of the hill.
^ The road to the reservoir is awesome. Very similar to a Japanese touge / mountain-road. I wanted my car so bad. Lots of these 3-wheel'd trucks going up and down taking stone and what note. They had 2-stroke engines that were struggling like hell on the uphill, check the emissions. (oh, and bus full of people totally overtaking on a blind corner, with a cliff-drop to the side)
^ This road NEEDS driving FAST.
^ Awesome, awesome, awesome.
^ More awesome. Photos don't really show the gradient. That road is STEEP.
^ Check the road snaking on itself. Want my car here NOW! :D
^ would drive the hell out of it. (90% of people reading this are bored of photos of a road... 10% are on there way here, with their car in a container... Jay, Rich, Dad; I'm looking at you.)
^ last photo of the winding road. Promise. :P
^ A guy doing his farming thing.
^ An awesome bridge accross the valley. Complete with choo-choo train.
^ A couple of people doing what I'd do. Bombing up and down the road on a superbike. I love the sound of a high-reving engine. Don't get to head that much out here.
^ Started to climb up the big-ass mausaleum, looking back down on the valley.
^ The huge body of water that is the reservoir.
^ A flag!
^ Myself and Fran, trying to tell the Chinese person how to use my camera was fun.
^ Awesome twisty towsty tree.
^ Nice, safe walkway up the hill.
^ More epic walkways.
^ Typical Chinese forrest/wood area.
^ Pretty Chinese flowers.
^ So... this was the pagoda we saw from the bottom of the valley, and decided we totally had to get to. It was a great achievement to get there. :)
^ Fran also feeling exhausted, sorry, happy to be at the Pagoda.
^ Looking down on the valley from the Pagoda. Check the winding road to the left, or the railway bridge on the distant left.
^ I just love that bridge.
^ Chess tables in the middle of the deserted forrest.
^ A wierd gateway. I can't remember how Fran translated the inscription. Something about being blessed when you walk through? or to blessed ground? something...
^ More Chinese flowery shiz.
^ More steps! :D ( my legs were frak'd )
^ :-)
^ :-(
^ I quite like this shot, despite the sun being in the wrong place.
^ Chinese flowery stuff, with the mausaleum in the background.
^ At the very top of the hill, there was an abandoned looking house, with an abandoned looking dog, who was less-than-happy to see us. :-P
^ Fran amongst some more Chinese flowery stuff.
^ Again, like this shot. In the distant left, that's the top of the Mausaleum that looks SUPER HIGH in the first photos. It felt wierd to be higher than something that I'd previously been looking up at. A similar feeling to Shanghai... but oh so different.
^ A convoy of the 3-wheeld trucks went sailing down the hill. Only 2 out of the 3 wheels even had brakes, and the road got STEEP in places. Damn, these guys are even brave or stupid... or Chinese. :D
^ Loving the windscreen.
^ More 2-stroke fumes.
^ Finally, to get back, we had to jump on one of the janky green buses (as pictured earlier in this post.) The people on the bus were all laughing their ass off at there being a foreigner on the bus. :-P The driver was crazier than the usual.
^ A bunch of Chinese people on a bus. :)
Thus concludes this flurry of posts. When will the next update be? Don't hold your breath. :P
Anyone who has played battlefield 2 is thinking "get the Apache and dominate that valley!". Or should I say get the Hind...
Haha, now that you mention it, that's funny. Railroad tycoon and Battlefield 2, all in one valley. =D