China Travel Log 2016 - Assault of Huashan

Fellow Virtual Travelers and Historians,

The last time you heard from us, we were in Shanghai. Since then, we flew to Xi'an where a guide met us. After 2 hour van ride, we arrived at Huayin City at the base of Huashan. We stay here until October 23rd.

An hour after arriving at our hotel, we video taped an interview with Abbot Yu, at the active Taoist Temple located near the base of Hua mountain. The interview lasted an hour, as Master Karl read pre-written questions to our English-speaking guide, who translated them to the Abbot.

We learned a lot from his answers - it cleared up some questions in our minds about the martial arts history at Huashan! This trip is only a scouting mission for Huashan and we'll need to return for a longer period of time, before writing about its myths, legends and folklore!

Today is October 21st and yesterday we spent much of our time on the West and South Peaks of Huashan:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Huashan_National_Park
http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/china-hiking/huashan-hiking.htm
http://wiki.china.org.cn/wiki/index.php/Mount_Huashan

Since our last visit to Huashan, they've built a new cable car system that takes you right to the top of West Peak, which saved us an enormous amount of hiking time. Our two interests on this peak were the Lao Tzu's Furnace and the Planked Walk.

While the weather was beautiful with unusually blue skies, the winds across the top of the peaks caused the planked walk to be closed. So we got to see where the plank path starts, but did not get to 'walk the plank' as we'd hoped. Weather permitting we'll try that assault again before we leave.

None of us are as sore from our hiking, as we thought we might be. Here's to 10,000 steps straight up!

Today it rained (as we'd expected from both the frontal system that caused the wind yesterday, as well as weather forecasts). We successfully accomplished some trip logistics by finding a bank to change more money and we got some laundry turned in. This afternoon, Dennis and Master Karl explored the West Jade Temple (dedicated to Emperor Xi Yue) here in town, while Anita caught up on log book entries and email communications from the hotel.

The legend of the Chess Pavilion will be a chapter in the 'Hua Mountain Odysseys' book and an overview of this legend is in our '10,000 Steps Straight Up' book, on page 118. The legend details how ownership of Hua Mountain came to be held by the Taoists.

Thank you to everyone we've heard from! We eagerly read your emails, but our internet connections here at Huayin has not been very reliable, so we have given up trying to respond!

Craggy peaks of Huashan

The Chess Pavilion

The Plank Walk Entrance

Blessings,
Dennis & Anita

China Travel Log 2016 - Shanghai

Fellow Virtual Travelers and Historians,

We are in Shanghai and have hit the ground running! To help us gauge our list performance and delivery, we'd like to ask that you do a quick reply to us. We gave up on trying to send an update via our MailChimp list, as the internet in our first hotel is too slow.

After a delicious Chinese breakfast in our hotel at the Pudong International Airport, we met with Peter Shi, our contact at Bigger Printing this morning:

http://www.biggerprintinggroup.com/

We've resolved as many questions with our printer as we can until we get our next book written (Wudang Mountain Odysseys). Once we have the chapters written, edited and laid out, we'll work with Peter for our first printing, which will incorporate many of Master Karl's 3D photographs of Wudangshan. Bigger Printing will help us sort out how to include 3D glasses with our book, so our readers can experience sights as we see them in person (3D)!

After finishing our business with Peter, we explored the Shanghai Foreign Language Bookstore. Dennis asked them (via one of our electronic translators), for any books about the history of both Wudang and Hua. None exist. Hhmmm. We'd better get these next two books written!

Then we went native, taking the subway and Maglev Train back to our hotel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train

Tomorrow we fly to Xi'an and a guide will meet us to drive us to Huashan, where we will interview another Abbot at the base of Hua. We'll be in the hotel at the base of Huashan for 4 nights, exploring the mountain during the day. We don't know what the availability of WiFi will be until we're there, so you may or may not hear from us for a while.

Chinese breakfast.

Bigger Printing - Master Karl, Peter and Dennis.

Maglev Train in Shanghai.

Blessings,
Dennis & Anita

Entered Writing Competition

Anita submitted her book idea entry to the MasterClass/James Patterson competition! Scary, nerve wracking and exciting all at the same time! The Yin and Yang of life. The submission entry number is 110930, so it seems unlikely to make the first cut of 10 for the next round… These documents were written for this step: Two-sentence hook (why would I, the reader, want to read this book); One-page book summary; Sample Chapter. Regardless, this has been a worthwhile exercise.

Here is The Revolts book hook:
From his birth and abandonment in a forest, Wei Hao faced daunting circumstances – especially since he was covered in fine fur due to a congenital birth defect. The eventual friendship of an unlikely female warrior aids their war against the Chinese empire, with the clashing of sword blades, hand-to-hand combat and sacrifice.

We also got notice today from the Tattered Cover Bookstore that our books arrived in their warehouse and were being processed to get on their shelves in a couple of days!

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