Laozhai Golden Haze

I am still in the small town of Xingping, China, and loving every minute of it.  Today I woke up early to see the sunrise over the Li River, but it was a little overcast.  I still think I got some decent shots.  After a little nap I spent the rest of the day exploring the area on a rickety old rental bike.  What a fantastic day!  I also got very lucky with the sunset; dull at first, then ignited with beautiful orange/purple fire for a few minutes.  That was the first spectacular sunset I’ve seen in quite some time…

Yesterday evening I climbed up Laozhai Hill (almost directly on front of my hostel) to watch the sunset.  There is a cool little pagoda you can view the entire northeast from.  Since I wanted the sunset, I was forced to boulder across 50 meters of jagged rocks, setting up my gear above a steep, steep drop.  No idea how high I was, but you can check out the photo below to get an idea!  There was nothing but the river below, so one slip up and I would have been toast.  Fortunately, I was pretty methodical with every movement, resulting in me not dying There wasn’t much of a sunset, but the fog/haze began to glow  for a few minutes, casting a beautiful yellow hue on the Li River Valley and allowing me to catch this shot.  Let me know what you think!

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