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Posted On Friday, November 8, 2013 at
at
1:02 AM
by Alvin
At long last, having repeatedly planned and repeatedly dropped our journey to Mount Wu Yi on numerous occasions, we finally made it to this natural beauty this Autumn - and Wu Yi (武夷山) did not disappoint ! Having spent an uneventful night at the river-side town of Nan Ping (南平), we arrived in Wu Yi Shan City (武夷山市) bright and fresh; and by a complete fluke, we found this pristine resort called 崇陽溪山莊 which mainly catered for Party Officials attending conferences and training courses and the staff made an exceptional welcome to us and offered us an executive suite ! We made good use of the special tea-set laid out for us and enjoyed the world-renowned tea grown around Wu Yi - 大红袍 ! Time for some strenuous exercise - we were here afterall, to climb Mount Wu Yi and its many spectacular red dome-shaped sandstone peaks and cliffs. Our main challenge was the peak of 天游峰 where we had an absolute panoramic view of the Brook of Nine-Curves (九曲溪) where most visitors chartered a bamboo raft (竹排漂流) to slowly drift down the peaceful brook and the raft journey would normally take 2 hours. After some huffs and puffs, we reached the top and winded ourselves down the back towards the Taoist Temple of 桃源洞.
Of particular note about Wu Yi was that not only the mountain scenery was pure magic, the areas around here were once a place of great scholarly learning. Arguably the most influential scholar since Confucius was the man Zhu Xi (朱熹) from the Song Dynasty (南宋) who set up prestigious learning centres such as the academy of 武夷精舍 around Wu Yi. Zhu's theology, methodology and discipline had been adopted by governments as far and wide as Korea, Japan and Vietnam around the start of the last millennium. The next day saw us hiking through the famous tea plantations around Wu Yi and the journey from the scenic areas of 水簾洞 to 大红袍 and then on to 虎嘯岩 took up most part of the sunny day and it was time to rest our tired limbs and that well-deserved cup of 大红袍 tea at the end of the day ! Making our way to Nan Chang (南昌) where we would board our flight home, we passed through the Jiang Xi (江西) town of Shang Rao (上饒) where we witnessed an amazing sunset by the river of Xin Jiang (信江) - a wonderful roundup of the journey and I would spare the details of how we survived the cold snap (an overnight drop of 15 degrees Celsius) that was to follow in Nan Chang !
Of particular note about Wu Yi was that not only the mountain scenery was pure magic, the areas around here were once a place of great scholarly learning. Arguably the most influential scholar since Confucius was the man Zhu Xi (朱熹) from the Song Dynasty (南宋) who set up prestigious learning centres such as the academy of 武夷精舍 around Wu Yi. Zhu's theology, methodology and discipline had been adopted by governments as far and wide as Korea, Japan and Vietnam around the start of the last millennium. The next day saw us hiking through the famous tea plantations around Wu Yi and the journey from the scenic areas of 水簾洞 to 大红袍 and then on to 虎嘯岩 took up most part of the sunny day and it was time to rest our tired limbs and that well-deserved cup of 大红袍 tea at the end of the day ! Making our way to Nan Chang (南昌) where we would board our flight home, we passed through the Jiang Xi (江西) town of Shang Rao (上饒) where we witnessed an amazing sunset by the river of Xin Jiang (信江) - a wonderful roundup of the journey and I would spare the details of how we survived the cold snap (an overnight drop of 15 degrees Celsius) that was to follow in Nan Chang !
