Today was another early start (out by 7) and we headed directly to the bus station. Jia Ming’s been paying for a lot of our small stuff (drinks, ice cream) which I don’t really like but he always manages to have his wallet out before me. It also doesn’t help when vendors quote me prices using words that I don’t understand. We took a small bus to the entrance of the Wulingyuan scenic area. We saw some Russians, but that was about it for white people until we got to the hostel. Many intra-China tourists, though. We made our way with the 134 RMB entrance fee (248 RMB for non-students, *ahem*) and saw many karst peaks, monkeys, and natural springs. I also managed to fall into one of the streams we saw which made the rest of the walking just that much more unpleasant. There was an interesting part of the path where it became elevated on various small obstacles, terminating in a swinging bridge for <20 people. There were some beautiful women in minority traditional clothing in front of various scenery but I was too afraid to take a picture with them. Eventually, we accidentally acquired a tour guide (who apparently sells cell phones and whom we managed to pay off with lunch and $2 US!) and had to make our way up steps to the top of the mountain. 3700 steps to be precise, with my backpack full of electronics, toiletries, clothes, and food (we left our suitcases in the hostel in Zhangjiajie). I sweated like I’ve never sweated before and I don’t think I’ll ever need to use the StairMaster machine ever again. At the top we ate lunch and it was awesome (75 RMB for 6 people!). We then worked our way around the mountain taking pictures. There was one old lady in particular who was very nice in giving me some sweet bread and continuing to talk to me in Mandarin. We also saw a little girl walking with her family with a shirt that said “Little Ms. Jailbait”. I’m pretty sure they didn’t know what that means. Eventually we made our way over to the #1 Natural Bridge!!! which was full of locks to signify people’s love, which made me a little sad. From there we went to the bus stop (after talking to a little girl who was very happy to meet a real live American). After much confusion, we finally got to our hostel which is the only place we’ve stayed at so far with squat toilets. The food there wasn’t great and there were dead bugs all over room, but it was great to have a place to stay after our stair adventure (and it got super dark really quickly). We played Monopoly for a while (using Li’s homemade inflatable dice!) and some foosball, ate dinner, talked about anime, and played Nintendo DS. We burned some anti-mosquito incense as we went to sleep.