燕岳

 On Sep 25, I am planning to climb Tsubakurudake (燕岳）

From Nagoya to 中房温泉

From Nagoya to Tsubakurudaka, I need to transfer the train at Matsumoto, then to Hotake, from there take local bus to Nakabasu onsen, which is entrance to the mountain.

I will stay one night at 中房温泉、to book the onsen hotel, you have to join a Japanese onsen club, it is a exclusive onset hotel, not well known for foreigners.

One night stay with 2 meals costs JPY23,300.

From 中房温泉 to 燕岳

I will wake up at 5:00 and start to climb from 5.30

From bottom to 3 benches will take about 4 hours, expecting to reach a middle guest house by 11.00am, then have lunch and rest there, then continue to 山小屋、燕山荘

After reaching there, leave the back bag at yamagoya, then go to peak, take about 30 minutes one way, 

From 燕岳 to 信濃大町

The second day, I will take my time to go down, reach 中房温泉 before 12:00pm, then take bus to 穂高駅 then go to 信濃大町, will stay there one night

From  信濃大町　to　富山

The next day, will cross Alpen route。

May God be with me, keep me safe and guide me all the way！

Sad Hit and Run case

 This morning, I received the message from my son, he found our neighbor's dog was hit by a car, was bleeding badly, the car had run off, and he took the dog to the vet.

While I was angry for such a hit and run case, I could not help but complaining to our neighbor for being such an irresponsible pet owner.  They often let the dog run loose outside the house, without a letch and helper to follow.

One time, a driver stopped by, angrily asking whose dog it is, as the dog stood in the middle of road, he almost hit the dog while driving.  He asked me, I directed him to our neighbor, the driver asked him to take care of his pet.

But soon after that, the dog was also seen running outside by itself.

This time, it was not so lucky.

My son was with Vet, and the doctor said it might not make it.

Later I went to talk to the wife, she was blaming the maid, who didn't look after the dog.

(I was dumbfounded)

Huang Long

 The second day, we went to Huanglong.

From Jiuzhaigou to Huanglong is about one and half hour by car.   To reduce the travel time on the road, We decided to stay near to Huanglong, which is also near to train station.

I checked Alipay website, (by the way, this is only office payment method for foreigners, they charge 3% for every transaction in china, while local needs not to pay surcharge).  there is one hotel called "Grand Hyatt Huanglong Hotel", the price is really cheap.  I doubt it is real Hyatt hotel.  Since it has some nice reviews I decided to give it a try.

My husband was really worried, "I cannot use Chinese squaring toilet", so we decided, before going to Huanglong, we checked out the hotel first, if it has seated toilet, then we will check in, if not, we will book another hotel.

Mr Deng, our driver, picked us up at 10:00, we travelled one and half hours and reached to "Grand Hyatt Hotel", true enough, it was not Hyatt chain hotel, but a typical Chinese hotel.  The room is decently clean and spacious, thankfully, they have seat toilets, so my husband agreed to stay in this hotel.:)

We then went to Huang long park.  It was raining a bit, comparing to Jiuzhaigou, there were less crowded in Huanglong, thankfully, I enjoyed the mountain under cloud views,

Same as in Jiuzhaigou, the mountain path were nicely built in wooden pavement, so you don't feel that you are in mountain, but rather in a park.  Huanglong is famous for its high PH level water, that creating the yellowish rock due to calcification process.  The water forms a lagoon, and waterfall, it is a very interesting sight.

Overall, our experience in Huanglong was better than Jiuzhaigou, thanks to the rain, so no food and smoking smell, (near the seating area, still had smoking smell).

The walking path are easy to walk , so no much fun for me, easier than our Bukit Timah Hill.  The air somehow was not as nice as in Japan's mountain air.

After all, Japan's mountains が大好きです！

Jiuzhaigou

 During September holiday, we visited Chengdu, and Jiuzhaigou huang long area.

Travel from Chengdu to Jiuzhaihuanglong

It is very easy to get highspeed train from Chengdu to Huanglongjiuzhai, takes about 2 hours.  The highspeed train is nowhere to compare Japan's shinkansen, but it shows great improvement for China.

Be prepared for some long queue and pushy crowded, otherwise, the journey is quite pleasant.

From Train station to Jiuzhaigou

Our trip plan was to first visit Jiuzhao Valley, then to Huanglong.  The two places is located in different town.  Huanglong is nearer to train station then Jiuzhai.  

From train station, you can take bus or taxi.  To avoid the local crowd, we took the taxi to our hotel, which costed about RMB260.  Later we decided to hire the driver for 3 days, total in RMB 1,200.

Our hotel is Hilton Jiuzhaigou, is next to a newly built resort.  As always, the room and environment are very nice.

Hilton Jiuzhai Gou

The second day, we went to Jiuzhaigou National Park.

It was very crowed, the in park tourist bus are very frequent, so I didn't understand why people were so pushy and rowdy, the bus took us the very top of tourist points, 3500 above sea-level, from there, we walked down to visit a few attractions.

It was not possible to finish all the attractions in one day, so here are a few highlights:

There are many similar sceneries like these, thanks for the good weather, we could see many fantastic views.

The most impressive part was Panda waterfall, no panda though, the waterfall area was cooling and charming.

One thing I felt annoyed, many people put their hands into the water, despite the sign of "No playing water"

We walked a few stops to reach some points, then decided to take bus to another side of park.

The views are no doubt beautiful, but there were just too crowded, and some sitting at roadside eating, the air filled with spicy food aroma; though the whole park is non smoking park, some people hide in the cave smoking.

For serious hikers, you might now find it satisfying, as all the path paved with wooden block, too easy to walk, conversably, rob away the natural charm of Jiuzhaigou valley.

I would rather go there in a quiet season, hiking by myself without taking tourist buses.