Mountain Hike and Dinner

Last fall we were invited to a mountain hike and dinner with an NPU Law professor. We got into Professor Zhang Min’s car around 1:30pm. We got dropped off back at our apartment about 8:30pm. It was a very full and fascinating experience. We spent the intervening time with her, her 13 year old son, a recent female law graduate, and 4 of her current law students (if I understand there are only a dozen law students total in their BA, MA, and Dr program at the university – this is a whole different story).

We drove toward the new campus except at the last major intersection, instead of going right we went left for exactly one mile to the “restaurant village.” Amazing place. Every house is a restaurant!  There were maybe 40 but perhaps way more. All the homes on any street (one main, and 3 side) were connected and in the same style with a large outdoor courtyard with dinner tables and small semi-indoor seating areas as well. A second story was housing. Because everything looked so new, nice, and modern, I asked if it was a recent government project. Min said no, that it was an old village and had been the “restaurant village” for Xi'an for a very long time.

“It is where everyone in Xi'an drives out to eat in the summer.” As we drove in, all the restaurants had people in the streets trying to get us to choose them. Min chose one, parked her car there, and told them to prepare dinner for the 9 of us for 6 pm.

Then we headed up into the mountains for a hike. At the upper edge of the village there was a ton of new construction of what appeared to be perhaps a hotel, many large luxury homes, and a half dozen or so large log cabins. Totally out of place and not the least Chinese from our experience.  A resort? 2^nd homes? Primary homes? Who knows – this is China and we never know anything!

The mountain trail started as the housing ended and basically followed a stream up to a dam and a reservoir and on up the creek. It was pretty much too narrow, too steep, too slippery, and too dangerous for America to allow it. All the stream crossings were on slippery, tilted, loose big rocks – not so much what we usually do. We could not have made it without the generous law students pushing, pulling, balancing us, etc. Fortunately l was the only one who slipped off the rocks and into the stream. How it only happened once and how no one fell off the edge of the trail is beyond us. We can hardly imagine how it would be on a beautiful summer day full of people moving in both directions. Impossible! No room to pass – hardly enough room for just one person. Ann says her  praying the entire time is the only reason it worked.

After we hiked back down, our meal was the standard 18 Chinese dishes – except we had never eaten any of them before. The food was hot but the air was cold and even in parkas and sweaters we were cold – several of the others even more so since they were not as warmly dressed.

Quite an experience. We need to go exploring there again sometime.  A totally different Chinese experience.

Zhang Min and her son Steven

Just getting ready to begin the hike.

Interesting support system here..

The whole group on the dam.

The scenery was beautiful. Notice the trail behind us.

We may be smiling but we are really sweating and trembling.

No railing and lots of rocks

One of the restaurants in town.

Here is the restaurant we ate in. We actually ate inside.

Lunch! And it was delicious!