Jiu Zhai Gou

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JiuZhaiGou Day 2 (18th Sept)

6am, I crawl out of bed and get down to the inn's living room for breakfast. Although suyoucha is not quite my taste, I know I need it for another long day. The baked bread on the right is plain bread, very plain. But dipping it in suyoucha is nice.

I am going up the right arm of the "Y", the RiZe Valley, with Xing and Juan. I heard that most of the major scenic sites are located on this arm. You bet I am very excited. So our day starts before the JiuZhaiGou gate opens.


Back to LuoRiLang Waterfall. At 7:30am, there is only 3 of us. No tourists yelling "here, here, here". And in weaker morning light, I am able to take this slow shutter PIC. Guarantee no head in the corner this time.	This PIC was taken yesterday from the sight seeing platform. Standard pose for LuoRiLang Waterfall.	Then we take the trail up the right arm of the "Y". First stop is the Mirror HaiJi. We hope to see it before morning wind ripples it's surface. You know, it would be nice to see a perfect mirror image of hills and trees on the opposite shore. However, we don't have the luck.	Falls and re-grows. The cycle goes on and on, on and on, on and on ... ... ...
Suspected lake monster? Of course not - it's a HaiJi monster to be precise.	Is it above water? Is it below? Or is it both? I find that the eyes and human psychology is malfunctioning here.	The tree trunk probably feels itchy right now.	This tree splits into 4 trunks at about 20 ft. Too bad my lens is not wide enough to capture that.

Xing is a photographer too. We stop and shoot, stop and stare, stop and admire, stop and do nothing. Although we are physically healthy, it takes us 4 hours to move 1 mile down the trail. At the biggest waterfall of JiuZhaiGou, we run into the crowd again.

A little warm-up waterfall of the Pearl Beach Waterfall.	Then it gets better.	The bright sun light prevents me from using a slow shutter. So this is all I can do.	Just a remark that while I am taking this PIC, there are about 1-2,000 tourists in the area. Very scary.
	When water runs over pebbles reflecting light from the sun, it looks like there are thousands of pearls rolling in the water. That's how Pearl Beach got it's name. I should be shooting from the other side if I want to capture the pearls but it's too bright to do so at noon. This is a view from above the waterfall.
Any complaint?	Spoiled me beginning to think this is just another no-big-deal scene.	Too much reflection. Is there any film booth where I can buy a circular polarizer!!??	If I die here in the HaiJis, I can probably re-grow into something else. See, I am thinking like a Buddhist already without being preached Tibetan Buddhism.

Suyoucha is really working as we are still feeling robust in the afternoon. All we have for lunch is a little of that baked bread we had for breakfast. Or maybe we are just too busy to get hungry.

Lovely green.	Wanna put on my scuba diving gear and jump into this underwater palace.	I meet a photographer from Guangzhou with full gear like tripod and long lens and stuff. I think I run into someone with the same interest and start a conversation. He tells me he started this morning and have been to the whole "Y" by bus ...	"JiuZhaiGou is only worth a day's time" he says. This guy is neither a photographer nor a traveler. I go, "I am busy, see ya."
In fact, I am really very busy.	The 5-Flower HaiJi. Count the colors.	5-Flower HaiJi from the other side. Count again.	Yet another PIC of 5-Flower HaiJi. The light is dim and it's getting late.
By the time we get to the Panda HaiJi, it's already 4pm. Counting miles, we have only done 5. Yes, 5 miles in 8 hours. That is a record since we learned to walk.	There is another description of JiuZhaiGou "fish swims in the sky". At Panda HaiJi, if the surface is quiet enough, you probably will think the fish are swimming in the air.	This one is no scenery. It's a blue spider web. I guess no one would spend time to dye blue a spider web in the wilderness. So how come it's blue? I don't expect an answer though.

At about 5:30pm, me and Xing are still busy taking PICs near the 5-Flower HaiJi. A staff van come by and tell us if we don't take this van, we will have to walk back to the inn. Feel like being arrested on a crime scene, we step onto the van reluctantly. It's a fruitful day.

Back at the inn, we wash and then go out for dinner. We go to a nearby restaurant that provides quicky lunch to demandless tourists. As expected, we have the worse dinner of the trip.

But still, when I go to bed, I sleep with a smile.