Hello! You’ll be pleased to know that we are alive and well in Zhangjiajie, China. Where exactly is that? I don’t know… Google it. Actually, it’s somewhere below Xi’an, and above Guilin in the center-south of China up in the mountains. The scenery here is amazing and it’s refreshing to see something more than just buildings, cars, and millions of people. In fact, the ghost-town-like village we stayed in last night was smaller than Tuolumne! But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning. We’ve been traveling for a week now with our friends Josh and Ashley, and Luke and his father Jon who flew out from the U.S. for the trip.Our first stop was Xi’an and we stayed there for two nights at a hostel called the Shuyuan Hostel. The first day we rode bikes along the ancient city walls. It was a great way to see the city and get some exercise. The city is big and old and there were a lot of cool alleyways to explore, especially in the Muslim district. We even found a place to try a Chinese-burger. Pretty good!The next day we checked out the Terracotta Warriors. It was mind-boggling how many warriors there were and how detailed they are. Every single one was different and they estimate that over 7,000 of these things were made! It took 750,000 people to construct Emperor QIn’s Mausaleum and the warriors. Crazy! If I remember right they started building it for him when he was 13 years old and it took 40 years to finish it…they weren’t even done by the time he died! Anyway, it was amazing and a great experience. 

On the third day we visited Hua Shan Mountain, one of China’s five sacred daoist peaks, and the tallest. We took a cable car to one of the peaks and then hiked for a few hours to the top. The views were awesome! But it was bitterly cold. The granite peaks reminded us a little of Yosemite and one part of the trail was crazier than the cables up Half Dome. Although it’s scenery was spectacular, the place we stayed at in the village was a little shady…ask us in person for that story. Short version: wailing woman outside and no heat.Day four began with our first train ride, which took us to Luoyang. Finding a place to stay was a little tricky as we hiked around town for a while. Some people tried to scam us into staying in their dodgy hotel and the place we wanted had closed – the day before we got there! I will say, we would be pretty lost without the helpful guidebook, Lonely Planet, or Luke – who speaks enough Chinese for us to survive. We spent the day in Luoyang resting and recovering…Hua Shan wore us out.The next day we met up with one of Ashley’s students who is from Luoyang and got THE hook up. We had no idea that her dad worked for the government…and that’s the ticket for getting schmoozed in China. We didn’t spend a dime the whole day. She had her dad’s driver take us to the fanciest restaurant we’ve been to in China! Our best meal in China for sure…including 20 amazing dishes or so: BBQ lamb, Beijing duck, Chinese wine, etc. We were spoiled. Then we went to the Longmen Caves. They were impressive. There were Buddhist carvings along the side of the Yi River, which were carved around 460 AD. Unfortunately, thieves had damaged some of them and a lot of heads were missing. But it was still amazing nonetheless, and some of carvings were gigantic. Once again the Chinese displayed how amazing their craftsmanship and detail is. After that we got a little tour of the city and then had dinner at an even fancier place, where we met Amy’s mom, aunt and some government guys. It was a pretty cool experience.We were unable to get train tickets to our next destination from Luoyang, so our hotel manager contacted a friend and got us tickets out of an adjacent city. It’s almost the Chinese Spring Festival here, so millions of people are travelling back home by train to be with family. We’ve been really fortunate to get this far without major delays. Anyway, the tickets were out of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere at a train station we were fortunate enough to find. No one there had ever seen foreigners before! The train ride was ten hours so we slept most of it in our bunks and woke up to some beautiful scenery along a river in an almost tropical climate. When we arrived at the city we took a bus – after some serious walking and searching – to Zhangjiajie Village. We had trouble finding accommodations with hot water and heat. It is cold up here in the mountains…although today was pleasant. We had to leave one place after the heaters crashed and got settled at another place, although pricier…$35 U.S. is steep in China! Today we found a cheaper place in another town that is bigger with more people and places to eat, where we visited an amazing cave! There were some massive caverns with some towering stalagmites. We even took a boat ride inside the cave! This thing was really, really, big…and made Moaning Caverns feel tiny. Tomorrow we will go into the park and check out the karst formations, which look spectacular from outside the park. We can’t wait!!!Overall, the trip is going well. Be praying for us and we look forward to seeing you all soon!!