By Al Wong This is my experience in Beijing, China in the Summer of 2009. If you came to this webpage first, it's better if you start from the beginning of the story. Wednesday, July 22 Solar Eclipse! Huangshan Solar Eclipse 2:14pm Got my 8am wake up call. Noticed it was really sunny from my hotel room window so I made an impromptu pinhole camera using one of the hotel`s brochures that was mostly white and a needle from a sewing kit. When I first tried it, I didn`t see a picture of the sun like I expected (the circle of light that came through the pinhole was bright with about a 10% concave covering it. I didn`t know if this was a partial eclipse or a defect in the pinhole. So I made a smaller hole on another place in the cardboard. Same image! Hmmm. I looked again 20 minutes later and the coverage was like 30% now. So I WAS looking at a partial eclipse projected on white cardboard through a pinhole. Cool. The clothes I hung up to dry were mostly dry now. The exception was my short pants which was damp but drier than before. I folded up these clothes and packed them. Put my checkin luggage out in the hallway. Grabbed a fast breakfast. By 9:15am, I was outside the front of the hotel. It was now cloudy outside! Now I`m thinking I won`t be able to see the solar eclipse. But hope springs eternal. So I wait out there. It`s getting dark but it's cloudy and you can't see the sun. So I start filming the surrounding area. Then the couple next to me starts talking excitedly. I point my video camera back at the sun and now the skies have cleared theres a full on solar eclipse! VERY COOL! I filmed the whole thing on my video camera and have some killer footage! 03/09/11 Update - I finally added my video of the solar eclipse! Check out the link below. The amazing thing was the clouds cleared for the full eclipse. Then they covered it again when the full eclipse was ending! I was very lucky. I was so involved in getting the video of the eclipse that I forgot to look up and see the eclipse with my own eyes! A full solar eclipse is the only opportunity for the human eye to see the sun and not get blinded. Oh well, next time. :) Huangshan 6:16pm We took an hour bus ride to the Huangshan. Then we took a smaller bus ride further up the mountain. Then we took a cable car further up the mountain! Then we hiked more than 30 minutes to our hotel, the Huangshan Shilin Hotel. The hike to the hotel was pretty grueling in itself! I suggest carrying as little as possible and hire the porters to carry your bags to the hotel. Again, it's one of those "little details" the tour operator left out when describing the tour. I should explain the walkways on Huangshan. You don't walk up natural mountain trails. No, that would be too easy. They've built these "trails" of concrete stairs that are jammed right into the solid rock of the mountain. So rather than walk on soft earth, you are walking on concrete stairs 100% of the time. No wonder my knees hurt! The hotel room was OK but it was really tiny. How tiny you ask? Well, the shower stall had the toilet inside it! You could take a shower and clean your toilet at the same time! :) There is an outlet for an ethernet cable but it appears to be dead. No Internet. We had lunch then took another grueling hike to the first scenic spot! My knees started hurting again. This was bad. Most of the group didn't complete the circuit hike. We did go far enough up into the Yellow Mountain to take some fantastic pictures though! I was told this was only one of the 10-12 scenic spots on the mountain. And our tour group barely made it to the first one. I think you have to be a major mountain climber to see all of these scenic spots. Back in my room now. Sorting and backing up today's pictures and videos. I'm meeting the tour group for dinner at 6:30pm. 8:07pm Back in my room again. Had a good dinner downstairs. The problem is there's going to be a 4am wake up call(!) to see the sunrise at Huangshan. The walk is 10 minutes to the scenic site. I think I can do it if I sleep in early. Thought the internet wasn't working in my room. It turns out, I was using the wrong ethernet outlet. There's one in the table and one hidden underneath the LCD TV. The one under the TV is the live connection! The internet is free in this hotel too. Cool. The Next Day China 2009 My Writings Al's Wild Web Page