Not so fragrant hills...

Today I headed with a small group to an area called Fragrance Hills. This area is extremely popular in the Fall because of its red and yellow foliage and mountain views. Apparently we chose some sort of Chinese holiday to view the Fragrance Hills. I thought I was at Mardi Gras or something--there were throngs of people all over the roads leading up to the park, and there were even more people within the park. We decided to take a chairlift to the top of the mountain, and we found out that we made the right decision. The ride on the chairlift took around 15 minutes, and it became very clear that the walk up would have left all of us completely exhausted. On the way up, Kyle and I were waved at and had "Hello!" yelled at us by the chairs passing us going the other way.
The Chinese love speaking English. Well, they love to say "Hello!" and "How are you?" but then realize that they have exhausted their English vocabulary and only smile if you press the conversation.
I noticed something a little disconcerting on the ride up to the top of the mountain. I couldn't see any red or yellow leaves, at all. When I arrived at the top of the mountain, I figured out why. There were vendors selling red leaves in plastic bags. Apparently all the vendors go to all the trees with red leaves and knock them off, so that they can sell them. China also loves to sell things--everything.
When we arrived at the top of the mountain, we were once again met with swarms of people. There were so many people that it was hard to really appreciate the view from the top of the mountain, and the haze didn't help either. After snapping a view photos and pushing my way through the thousands of Chinese tourists, it was time for the decent to the bottom of the mountain. Short on cash, we had to hoof it back down. The trip down was long and at times dangerous. Apparently the Chinese also love to make stairs out of the most slippery stones that they can find. Finally arriving safely at the bottom, we discovered that with the thousands of other people trying to leave the park at the same time, that taking the bus back to school was completely out of the picture. The only other option left was to take a cab. We pooled all of our money together, and found that we only had about 20 Yuan. Definitely not enough to get us back to campus. So, I made the executive decision to take a cab and just not tell the cab driver that we didn't have enough money.
The cab driver understood all the directions that I gave him, but when I tried to make small talk, he didn't understand anything. When we got closer to campus, we called Muh and asked him to come down and spot us some money. Thankfully he made it down soon after we arrived, so everything worked out perfectly.
I have new pictures up from today on web shots, so check them out.