Last weekend I went hiking with a few friends in some mountains called FengHuang Shan, or Phoenix Mountain. It was 2 and 1/2 hours by train from Shenyang, to the eastern border near North Korea. The original plan was to go to Benxi, but our new friends on the train advised against it, so we changed plans, extended our tickets, and headed to Phoenix City.
The train is great for getting travel advice if you speak the language. Everyone has their opinion about where and when you should go and how you should get there. For the two hours that we were on the train, the man sitting across from me, who'd traveled all over the country as a salesperson, gave me travel advice, solicited or not. By the time we'd arrived at our destination, the people sitting around us had planned enough vacations for us to last all our remaining weekends, holidays and vacations in China.
FengCheng (Phoenix City) was a small city of 700,000 people (there are hundreds of cities in China with a population over 1 million). When we got off the train, we found a bus that would take us to the mountains. It was a rickety bus that cost each of us 1.5 yuan (30 US cents). There weren't any bus stops; the bus drove slowly and people simply waved it down if they wanted to hop on, and told the bus driver when they wanted to get off. Bicycles went faster than us.
(This wasn't our bus - the bus is in the background. This could have been our ride up into the mountain though...)The mountains were great. The spring winding down the mountain was still frozen, and we walked along it until we reached the major trail. Many parts of the climb were more like rocks with steps carved into them, and we climbed up vertically and sideways.
In the evening after our hike, we warmed up at a local restaurant with "Sa Guo", a local dish which is a pot placed on top of fire, with broth, noodles, sour cabbage, pork blood, and pork. We also ordered eggplant, chicken, beef, and the local Yalu River Beer. The people in FengHuang Shan look different than in Shenyang; they appeared heartier, more traditional, and were definitely very interested in my "lao wai" (foreigner) friends.
We took the train back at the end of the evening. It was so crowded that many people were standing and all the seats were taken, so we walked to the end of the train cars and upgraded (2 USD / person) for the dining room, where we had the entire cabin to ourselves to play cards and drink coffee, until we were back home, at least for now, in Shenyang.
