Xuedoushan is a beautiful mountain near Ningbo. It has a lovely temple, a huge bronze Buddha, and an awesome gorge hike lined with some pretty spectacular waterfalls. 

1. Go to the South bus station, 408 Mauan Rd, Haishu District // 汽车南站 (Qiche nanzhan), 马园路408号

Note: There are apparently *two* south bus stations, so make sure you're at the one that's small, chaotic, outdoors, and in sight of the Howard Johnson Plaza. 

2. Join the queue for the bus to Xikou 溪口. You do not need to buy tickets beforehand. The buses are small (19 passengers, I think), and come pretty regularly. The journey will take about an hour and costs 12RMB.

3. When you get to Xikou, the bus will stop at the back of the bus station. Walk to the front and take the #106 bus to Xuedoushan (the end of the line). It takes around 25 minutes and costs 1RMB. 

Note: This is not Ningbo; your Ningbo bus card will not work. 

4. The ticket office is to the left of the main gate. They have several different ticket options for the different parts of the park. The all-inclusive tickets cost 230RMB. We bought tickets for 150RMB that include the temple, various waterfalls, and the house that someone (I think Chang Kai Shek) was confined to. We ended up buying more tickets in the park (20RMB to go to the top of the Buddha; 50RMB for the monorail/cable car). 

5. The waterfall hike is three kilometres long, and to get out of the gorge you either need to hike back three super-steep km, or buy the monorail tickets. You can save a little by not buying the cable car ticket and hiking up the last cliff face, but it is near-vertical stairs. About 1.8km down the gorge, a sign tells you to turn back if you've reached that spot after 15.10 because you won't make the last monorail at 15.40. This is not strictly true: we went on and were able to get a monorail at about 16.00.