The Ghost City

The Ghost City was to say the least interesting, and I had more than enough fun for everyone in the program. It started off leaving the cruise ship off the Yangtze River. Every time we left the cruise to go on our next on shore expedition, we had to cross a series of scaffolding sections on ground level, metal pallets, and stone structures. The only time we had to cross every kind of obstacle was the Ghost City. All the cruise ship workers were saying, “Mind your step.” and “Watch your head.”

After I crossed the series of exercise warm-up worth of paths made, I approached a very large set of stairs, and after the Great Wall just about everyone hates stairs. I remember thinking, “What if I see a ghost?” Just as this thought passed through my head a man appeared in front of me, as I had been staring right in front of myself until this point, he was disabled and begging for money. Regardless, the way his leg was bent reminded me of a scary movie. I tried my best to keep calm, and I did. My heart was probably beating an extra 50 bpm in addition to the stair climbing though. There were many other disabled beggers on our way up to the Ghost City.

Electric carts took us into the city and dropped us off where we were able to see and hear from a tour guide much of the Chinese religious traditions and history. I thought it was very interesting. I remember seeing an old lady performing the bridge test with us. You were not allowed to slip, and you had to take an odd number of steps. I took an even number of steps by accident, but no one seemed to notice.

One of the other tests was to lift a 400 pound stone I think it was onto a small curved surface about a foot off of the ground.  The stone was small, but extremely heavy.  One of the students in our group tried to lift it, but he looked like he was going to pop a blood vessel in his brain or something.  Then, we watched a skinny man do it.  He spun it in a circle, and then lifted it onto the surface.  The legend was if you could lift it, then you were superman.  Surprise.  We were informed that since he could lift the heavy stone, we should give him money.  It was pretty cool so I gave him ¥5.

 

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