Purple Mountain is only about 2 miles from the University, and many people get up very early and climb up the mountain, which is about 1500 feet high. James and I got up at 5:30 this morning and met one of my students at 6 am. My student told us it would take about half an hour to walk to the mountain, and an hour to walk up. James was complaining bitterly, so I decided the better part of valor was to take a cab to the foot of the mountain and then walk up. The cab took us to a different part of the mountain than my student was familiar with, and between the unfamiliar paths and an eight year old in tow, climbing up took a little over two and a half hours. All of the paths were very rocky and large portions were very steep. We arrived at the top to discover we could have walked the whole way on a road. My student said, somewhat sheepishly that when he walks up, he walks up on the road.
Having half killed ourselves walking up, we took a cable car down. I will say that both going up and coming down, that the view was spectacular, it looked like downtown Nanjing was springing up out of the forest, and there were wide swaths of bamboo forest. It was just lovely, but incredibly hot. James had a collar of salt around the top of his shirt, he sweated so much. The knees of my pants were wet.
We couldn't get a cab at the foot of the mountain, they were all full, so I took my first bus ride in the Nanjing on a 1Y (no air conditioning) bus. James kept singing "Jingle Bells," to the great amusement of my student. We arrived home at 10:45 am, hot and tired, but with an enormous feeling of achievement, even though many people in their sixties passed us on the trail.
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