Well hello there! We're back from our long trip around China. We arrived at the uni (our new home) just over a week ago, however, getting the internet (amongst a few other things in the apartment) has been slow going and we only just connected today. But now, I'm ba-ack!! And I've had a BLAST. There have been many 'ups' on our trip of course, but also a fair few stressful times, and 'downs', mainly due to one of our drivers, but more on that later perhaps... Basically: we made it! And saw some amazing sights, ate some sooo fricken tasty food, and met some wonderful people.
I ran less than usual, as I knew I would, but I still managed to get a couple of runs in in each province (and even managed FOUR in the last week, all in beautiful Inner Mongolia, our new province for the next year).
I thought, for the purpose of this primarily being a running blog and whatnot, that I'd try to focus on mainly the running aspect of my trip (for the rest, you'll have to buy our forthcoming travel book haha - we are going to write a book about our adventure! Lol, watch this space). So, I will write about a different province's running environment and my experience on each day's blog post, starting with today's tale of, dum-de-de-dum, drum roll please.....: Anhui province.
Anhui was our first province after leaving our home-province of two years, Zhejiang. There is truly only one word for Anhui province (or the parts we saw anyway) - fecund. Everywhere was so beautiful, lush, green, and there were abundant veggie patches everywhere. I had two runs through Anhui province: the first through a quaint and beautiful mountainside village near the very famous Huangshan, which was slightly undulating owing to the mountain nearby. The second was a flat run but at the foot of another famous mountain, Jiuhuashan, with the most beautiful backdrop of jagged peaks of said mountain and similarly lush, fecund fields of veggies and rice paddies too. This second location reminded me a lot of running through the Balinese countryside. Gorgeous.
I have no photos of the actual running routes but here are a few shots from Anhui province anyway. Your imagination can fill in the rest. Picture running past gorgeous green, verdant, lush fields and mountains, fresh water streams, with a fair few traditional village houses and the odd ye olde bridge or two chucked in for good measure.
I ran less than usual, as I knew I would, but I still managed to get a couple of runs in in each province (and even managed FOUR in the last week, all in beautiful Inner Mongolia, our new province for the next year).
I thought, for the purpose of this primarily being a running blog and whatnot, that I'd try to focus on mainly the running aspect of my trip (for the rest, you'll have to buy our forthcoming travel book haha - we are going to write a book about our adventure! Lol, watch this space). So, I will write about a different province's running environment and my experience on each day's blog post, starting with today's tale of, dum-de-de-dum, drum roll please.....: Anhui province.
Anhui was our first province after leaving our home-province of two years, Zhejiang. There is truly only one word for Anhui province (or the parts we saw anyway) - fecund. Everywhere was so beautiful, lush, green, and there were abundant veggie patches everywhere. I had two runs through Anhui province: the first through a quaint and beautiful mountainside village near the very famous Huangshan, which was slightly undulating owing to the mountain nearby. The second was a flat run but at the foot of another famous mountain, Jiuhuashan, with the most beautiful backdrop of jagged peaks of said mountain and similarly lush, fecund fields of veggies and rice paddies too. This second location reminded me a lot of running through the Balinese countryside. Gorgeous.
I have no photos of the actual running routes but here are a few shots from Anhui province anyway. Your imagination can fill in the rest. Picture running past gorgeous green, verdant, lush fields and mountains, fresh water streams, with a fair few traditional village houses and the odd ye olde bridge or two chucked in for good measure.
Short and sweet for my return then! Still have much to sort out here in the new apartment and things on campus. So, tune back in tomorrow for Henan Province's instalment.
I hope you've all had a wonderful month and I'll now be able to catch up with everything I've missed since being offline (pretty much, got on our personal emails and fb a few times when we had wifi in places, but it was sketchy to say the least - kind of nice not having the computer though, I must say!).
I hope you've all had a wonderful month and I'll now be able to catch up with everything I've missed since being offline (pretty much, got on our personal emails and fb a few times when we had wifi in places, but it was sketchy to say the least - kind of nice not having the computer though, I must say!).
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