Tai Shan Trip

 

 

SO.... the trip to Tai Shan... about that...  It was, more or less, pretty fun. We left at about 9:30 friday night on a sleeper train from Beijing to a small town nearby Taishan. We arrived at about 6 am and went and ate breakfast at a hotel. After breakfast we made way to the Dai Temple. We spent about an hour or so there, then went to Mt. Tai (Tai Shan).

It was a really beautiful area, and made me miss Bellingham as it was very hilly and green. One major difference, though, was when you looked down from the mountain it was completely surrounded by concrete. Sweet. So we had to climb up over half-way (whether you wanted to or not) to the "half-way point" which was well over 800 vertical meters. At this point, I wimped out and took the cable car the rest of the way... but I'm really glad that I did, because there were very few that didn't feel like dying after they climbed the rest of the way up. Plus, the view from the cable car was spectacular. Once up top, Emily and I saught out some lunch. We ended up bargaining down some instant noodles to 2 for about $1.25 US. They were about $1 US each at the beginning. So, we proceeded to eat our lunch at the top of the mountain; we both agreed that you couldn't buy a better view for lunch!! Afterwards, we walked around up top for a little while; went out on a cliff, checked out a small temple, etc. At about 2:30 (we'd been there and hiking since about 9) we started to walk down. This was the point that I realized that I had made a spectacular choice in not climbing up, as it was probably a good 40 degree angle, if not more (I'm no mathmatician, I just speak Chinese). It made me feel like a wimp though, because there were all these old Chinese people and kids under 10 climbing up. However, there is a prophecy that if you climb to the top you will live to be over 100 years old. We also heard that a lot of old people (old as in 70+) will climb to the top to pray to the god of Tai Shan... Emily and I both joked that if we were the god and had seen all these older people climb all that way, we'd be like "Hey, you obviously want this badly/are crazy, you can have it."  Also, a side note, on the way up and down we saw monkies!!! Ok, so they were someone's pet that they would use to lure tourists to give money, but still! My dreams have come true!!!  The top of the mountain was just gorgeous, and I feel like it was pretty cool to get to go to it, however it was VERY different than any mountain that I've ever been to in the US. As a friend of mine put it "It's like they put a whole crap-load of cheap stuff on top of a mountain and then told everyone that if you climb to the top you'll live a long time, just so that they can make you buy cheap crap and more expensive prices." Well put, Matt. If that doesn't paint the picture, look at my pictures; the top is just covered in shops, all selling the same exact things for 2-3 x more than you can buy them at the bottom. After the mountain we drove a couple hours to another city where we spent the night. The next morning we went to a whole bunch of Confucius sights: his Mansion, Temple, and Cemetary. I was a little dissapointed with the Temples and other sights that we went to during the weekend, as they most definitely weren't as exciting as the Mountain, and they didn't really have a whole lot to look at. Some of them were rather large (i.e. Confucius' Mansion), however there wasn't really a lot that you could look at besides the buildings. It was kind of cool though to think that one of his decendents was once in the same place that you were (they were all built after his death)!!! Oh, also, at... I think it was the Confucius Temple, Emily and I were indirectly pooped on by a bird. This bird pooped from a tree high above (literally a bomb, as it was HUMONGOUS) and it splattered all over us. We continued on through the Temple, but left early so that we could clean up before we left for the other sights. THAT was fun. 

My only gripe about the trip is that I felt like we just kept pushing and pushing and had very little time to get good rest. That wouldn't be too bad if it hadn't been that we climbed a mountain one of the days we went. They were nice and let us sleep in more on Sunday, but it still wasn't much. Plus, sleeping on the trains was a little difficult, especially for those of us, like myself, that had never slept on one before. Oh well, over all it was fun, and that's what counts!