20250822 Friday August 22, 2025. Qianshan Scenic Area Hike, Lamb Roast

We were up at 5:15 a.m. and headed down to the lobby at 6 a.m. for our planned hike, but it was raining heavily, so we weren’t sure if an alternate plan was necessary. The weather forecast predicted the rain would end by 9am so we headed out because it would take 3 hours to get to the mountains. 

The rain was very heavy, causing a lot of urban flooding which caused garbage cans to float in some places and nearly swamping some smaller vehicles. Commercial traffic on the highways all ran with hazard blinkers on. 

As we got closer to the mountains, we stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. We were told it was a buffet, but the food was all in full-sized serving portions for family-style dining. This caused a bit of confusion as we got to the end of the buffet area where Tom’s family members paid the bills for the plates. It turned out to be a situation where everyone ended up shopping their dishes around each of our tables so that food didn’t go to waste. 

The food was good and plentiful, but had we known it was family-style dining and not a buffet, in the American sense of the word, we would have chosen foods differently. 

The forecast ended up being accurate. The torrential rain let up, and by the time we arrived at Qianshan Scenic Area, the rain had ceased and had cooled things a bit, so the temperature was in the low 80s. 

The Qianshan Scenic Area is a huge, highly developed park with some areas resembling a theme park, but we were going to do some hiking trails led by one of Tom’s uncles. We ended up dividing into two groups with DaQing and Andy taking Janet on lower-elevation touring of some temples and walks around the streams, while Tom’s uncle led everyone else on some serious hiking and climbing.  

There are several temples scattered amongst the very mountainous terrain, connected by trails largely paved with granite blocks and caved into steep rock faces.  There are steel handrails installed in many places where the trails are very steep and require scrambling up rock faces using footholds chiseled into them.  

This was a great adventure for the kids, and Ben also enjoyed the challenge.  It was very similar in many ways to the Grand Canyon Track in Australia’s Blue Mountains, with its thousands of granite steps, but this trail was much narrower and harrowing enough to make some kids cry.  There were a couple of passages where you had to shimmy through sideways and at a steep angle to get through cracks between boulders or rock faces.  Looking at a map, we covered over half of the trails in 3.6 miles with 1,223ft elevation gain.  It took us 3-1/2hrs to get back to the parking lot.  There are several temples including the Dragon Spring temple, which apparently is one of the most sacred Buddhist temples in China.  

When we started hiking, there was a little coolness from the rain and heavy cloud cover blocking some of the sun’s UV rays, but towards the end, the sky cleared and the sun came out just as we had finished the rugged trail parts and were coming down through the Dragon Spring temple.

We ended up about 2 hours late for the lamb lunch at the GAO Family Mansion in Wazigoucun, about 2 hours south of central Shenyang.  This was an elaborate feast featuring a whole roast lamb, cooked in a special earthenware charcoal oven.  This also featured two of the largest beer bottles we have ever seen.  It is traditional to serve this beer in bowls instead of glasses.  It’s a good thing it is only 2.5% alcohol.  Our group of 20 plus diners did barely manage to drain the bottles making multiple toasts around the huge round table, which is a local tradition.  

Drinking that huge amount of beer meant making two unscheduled bathroom stops— one at a highway rest area, and the other to dump a Gatorade bottle filled with recycled beer on the side of the road just outside Shenyang.  

We got back to the hotel in time for Ciara and Tom to move into the bridal suite.  This was a HUGE upgrade from their tiny original room.

The hotel had set out decorations for Ciara and Tom’s wedding and also set up the stage and runway for tomorrow’s ceremony, so we got to get a better feeling for the proceedings tomorrow.  During the rehearsal, the wedding organizer had described things, but it was much better seeing the room set up for the actual ceremony.  

Although Ciara and Tom had originally planned to do a spa night tonight, it was late enough by the time they got moved into the bridal suite that the spa was rescheduled for Sunday.  

The big day kicks off at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow with Ciara’s makeup.  It will be an interesting, if not hectic, day tomorrow.