It's been a week since I've last posted and my recent posts have been fairly brief, so I'll try and make this one better.
We left for the Bishan area on Saturday afternoon. After a short bus ride and a decently long walk, we made it to the base of the mountain. At the base of the mountain was the Hot Spring Resort. We would come back to this place after we had climbed the mountain. But as we passed it, we saw a bunch of peacocks walking around outside. There was a wedding going on at the resort during this time so I have to think the peacocks were there for that, but it was still cool to see them. After seeing these weird birds, we made our way up the mountain.
As we got closer to the mountain, we noticed many people carrying water with them. Apparently, the mountain has amazing water and the local people come here to get their drinking water. It's amazing, they travel miles and hike a mountain just for drinking water. It really made me appreciate how I get my water.
The lower part of the mountain consisted of stairs both steep and flat that went through the mountain up to the higher parts. There were worn in trails off the side of the stairs too. These paths were though to be shortcuts. I went with the students on one shortcut and found myself in someone's rice paddy. We eventually made our way back to the trail, but not after a few minutes of getting our bearings.
The lower part of the mountain consisted of stairs both steep and flat that went through the mountain up to the higher parts. There were worn in trails off the side of the stairs too. These paths were though to be shortcuts. I went with the students on one shortcut and found myself in someone's rice paddy. We eventually made our way back to the trail, but not after a few minutes of getting our bearings.
Once we made it back to the trail, we continued on and found a water source. It was a pipe coming from the mountain with water come out of it. We saw people filling their water up there so I decided to do the same. It tasted good and didn't get me sick so I can't complain. But from this point forward, the mountain would have less steps and more of a steeper trail made of dirt and rocks. As we progressed further, we saw an area with men working out. It seemed weird to us that these men would go up in the mountain just to workout. But we moved on didn't think anything of it. We made it the upper part of the mountain where there were less trees and more clearings.
During our final hike to the top of the mountain, we came across a group of wives who were having a picnic. They were very happy to see and wished us well. So we made our way to the top and took lots of pictures and then began our trek down.
So as we made our way back down, we ran into the group of women who having a picnic once again. They were the wives of the men who were working out lower on the mountain. They insisted on us taking our pictures with them and trying their homemade wine. And that's exactly what we did.
So we left the wives to their picnic and continued down the mountain. There were some scary points because of the rocks and steepness of the trail. But after about 45 minutes, we were back at the base. We then ate a small lunch of noodles and went to the hot springs
I couldn't get any photos of this place, but it was pretty cool. It was like a resort/lodge thing at the base of a mountain. Inside there were a bunch of pools of varying temperatures. One was 42 C, which is about 107 F. Once the heat got old, I went to the fish pool. The fish pool had little fish that would bite you. This is relaxing to some, but not for me. I couldn't handle it. After an hour or two of the hot springs, we left and found dinner.
We had another very large meal with many courses, but I finally found something that I could not eat. The only way I can describe it is pig fat over a pile of bad tasting black mush. Aside from that, the dinner was really good.
I couldn't get any photos of this place, but it was pretty cool. It was like a resort/lodge thing at the base of a mountain. Inside there were a bunch of pools of varying temperatures. One was 42 C, which is about 107 F. Once the heat got old, I went to the fish pool. The fish pool had little fish that would bite you. This is relaxing to some, but not for me. I couldn't handle it. After an hour or two of the hot springs, we left and found dinner.
We had another very large meal with many courses, but I finally found something that I could not eat. The only way I can describe it is pig fat over a pile of bad tasting black mush. Aside from that, the dinner was really good.
All in all, it was really cool to hike a mountain and go to the hot springs. Th