I really felt like I needed and wanted to get out of Yongchuan this weekend. But as situation would have it, we stayed within running and biking distance of our home. At first I was terribly upset about not leaving the district but sitting here on Sunday evening, I feel refreshed and pleased with a really great weekend.
Friday night I chose to take a day off of any real kind of working out. I had run short but hard throughout the week with some mini crossfit workouts thrown in and a lot of yoga. My legs were tired. We relaxed by cooking up dinner and chillin with friends and listening to some Christmas tunes.
Saturday we slept in a little and got up just in time for morning yoga at the gym. The weather was pretty blah grey, wet, and cold (think vancouver winter after 6 days of rain and clouds....that was it). We got to yoga and noone else was there? Eventually two others showed up and we started class about 40 minutes late. We didn't mind, while we were waiting Andrew and I practiced some acro yoga, headstands, and some harder yoga holds. After yoga, we made some homemade breaky and fidled on the computer. Once we realized the weather wouldn't change, we put on our running gear and got out on our dirt road trail up tea mountain. We got to the top and explored some random new dirt roads and trails on top and then headed back down in time for lunch.... we were out for about 3 hours! The dirt road tea mountain is one of my favorite long run routes we have found here. The dirt road was extremely muddy thanks to a week of non stop wet weather... The mud, the mist, the rain, the cool weather all made for a unique run up the mountain.
Sunday we enjoyed another lie in... We woke up to SUN! and so decided it would be a good day to get on the bikes. We went up the other ridge around town and headed for Cucumber mountain. Cucumber mountain is a part of the ridge where there are a lot of crops and vegetable farms. They are also building a hotel surrounding a typical man made smelly green looking small lake!?!? Oh CHINA... Once we explored the main area of the crops, we got off the bikes and went exploring around some of the trails. We found one trail that had a large amount of stone steps that took us down to a plateau, which then divided into several other trails. We picked one that took us deeper into this forested valley. Within the forest we took a less travelled path to try and find where the waterfall sounds were coming from. We managed to find a little creek with a cute little/mini waterfall... we enjoyed this little oasis among concrete everything, took some photos and eventually made our way back around and up to our bikes. Before heading home we stopped in the village and got some lunch and again we were the attraction of the hour for the locals... :)
After about 5 hours of adventures on bike and foot we found ourselves back home, showered and pleased about our finds and adventures
I now realize that we don't always have to leave Yongchuan to explore and find adventures. There is a ton to do just a run and bike ride away from home. We got to sleep in, cook our own food, sleep in our own bed, save money, and still have adventures that felt like we were miles away from the city. If we had gone somewhere on the bus or train this weekend we would have been there for a rainy Saturday and missed enjoying most of Sunday's beautiful weather due to travelling back to Yongchuan.... I have to learn to listen to Andrew more often:) To truly understand some life lessons, you have to learn for yourself through experience...
live, love, laugh,..DREAM!
lina
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