Last Friday afternoon, a small group of us went to climb Lou Guan Tai.  This mountain is quite famous in Xi’an because this is where Laotze apparently wrote the “Book of the Dao”. Most of the people decided to take horses up part of the way (the locals were very convincing!) but my friend Meghan and I decided to hike to the top.

It was quite a steep way up.  We even passed many residential houses and a family enjoying lunch outside.  My favorite part is reaching the top!  I love that moment when you can look out and just see the world below you. 

As we were hiking down, we stumbled upon Laotze himself!

I had to cross an absolutely breath-taking white bridge to get to his statue.  It was well worth the climb!

As we passed through the gate on the way out, I couldn’t believe the beautiful view of these mountains was only an hour outside the city.  Luckily for me, there are a lot more mountains to hike in the area so more adventures await!