Fellow Virtual Travelers,
Happy New Year to all of you! Now that the holidays are behind us, are you ready for some more China 2012 stories?
A couple of months ago, you met Victor at Wudang mountain. This story explores perhaps the most unnerving and weird event during our two week China adventure!
We arrived at the base of Wudangshan late in the day on October 22nd, after a five-hour bus ride. Victor met us at the outdoor bus stop and we walked 10-15 minutes through town to get to our hotel. After checking in, we hauled our 150 pounds of luggage up four flights of stairs to our hotel room. Before saying goodnight to Victor, we agreed to meet in the parking lot the next morning at 6:30 am to walk to the town square for exercise with the local towns folk.
On the morning of October 23rd, it was still dark and the temperature brisk as we headed through town, walking along the local waterway. Coming into the town square some 20 minutes later, there were many groups of locals already dancing, playing badminton, going through sword forms and doing Tai Chi forms, including fans.
After individual warm ups and stretching, Victor started us out by taking us through some of his martial arts material. Partway through one of his Tai Chi forms, we caught a glimpse of something small and black flying high over and around the town center.
The unit flew quite high back and forth along the road and over us for about 5 minutes before it came close enough to really see. It was a version of an octocopter drone containing a remote control camera!
Of course, we're thinking, 'Uh oh! We don't exactly blend in here in rural China! Why would big brother be watching us?'
Finally the crew running the unit brought it to the ground on the side of the town square and we got to meet them and take close up pictures of the octocopter. We presume that they were with a local TV station, so if any of you find footage or photographs of us online, let us know and we'll send it to this list! Look for three Americans with Victor in Shiyan City, China on October 23rd, at the town square. Seven-thirty (ish) am.
There were no elevators in the hotels, but we had robots in the sky watching us… It's enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up!
Blessings,
Dennis & Anita