According to The Lonely Planet, when Confucious climbed Mt. Tai (Taishan 泰山) he spoke the words, “The world is small.” When Chairman Mao journeyed to the top he said, “The East is Red.” When I made the trip, the first words out of my mouth were, “Wow, that was a lot of stairs!”  But we’ll get to the mountain later.

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Our National Holiday vacation began October 1st. I awoke to beautiful blue skies. It was interesting to discover the previous night that the government can regulate the weather (and has many times).  I was reminded of a few utopian society books that I have read. I’ll admit it was a little bone-chilling to find out that this sort of technology is being used. I was naively unaware that rain can be controlled. Nevertheless, I enjoyed a lovely morning of packing, watching the parade in Chinese on television, and taking a taxi to retrieve my bike from where I left it during the rain the previous night.

After packing, I walked to the subway to meet two other teachers to go to the train station. This was quite possibly the fastest subway ride I have ever been on.  Line 1 was completely closed because of the above-ground festivities. Line 2 had only a few stops open, so what should have taken an hour ended up taking half of that. While waiting to meet another teacher at the train station, the three of us enjoyed the blue skies.

At the designated time, the other teacher arrived and we were on our way. We had standing tickets for the five hour ride to Taishan 泰山. My original feeling about this was apprehension. This changed from apprehension to indifference. I thought, “I guess I can stand for five hours.” I could not have been more mistaken.

My first train experience in China went something like this:

…getting onto the train by successfully pushing through a wall of people, standing next to a mother with two children (one of which peed on the floor three times), meeting my new friend Kevin who attends a university in Beijing 北京 for music (somehow we music geeks always find each other), visiting with Kevin and another person who appeared to be his friend but was also someone he just met (and an awesome translator for Kevin and me), constantly hearing “ting bu dong” from people on the train (I think that “ting bu dong” could be my new nickname), and constantly shifting (into people) to make room for those who were going back and forth to the bathroom (and for the cart which, even though there was no room in the aisle, the train staff insisted on shoving through)…

There were many times when Kevin, the other guy, and I would say, “No! You had your one roundtrip to the bathroom.” Obviously we were kidding, but the longer the ride lasted, the more serious we became. Just when I thought I couldn’t handle it anymore, the train made its second stop and most of the standers (along with a few sitters) got off the train! This was a much needed relief. The last hour and a half of the ride was so much more bearable. I continued to visit with Kevin and was even able to read my book for a while.

We finally arrived in Taishan–the first time. At the train station we purchased tickets for our journey to Qingdao. We would have gone straight to Qingdao from Beijing but, because of the holiday, they were fresh out of tickets. As we left the train station the giant screen TV outside was broadcasting the festivities from the capitol. We made it to the hotel where we dropped our backpacks and headed out to find supper. We settled for KFC because we were all hungry not in the mood to walk further to find something else. While we ate at KFC people were shooting off fireworks across the street in front of a building. We made it back to the hotel, crashed, and woke up refreshed for our journey to Qingdao.

The train to Qingdao was much more bearable. We had a sleeper car and a lot of room to stretch out, especially after a couple left to find an empty area.

Qingdao 青岛

We arrived in Qingdao in the early evening. Our taxi driver took us on the scenic route to our hostel but we didn’t mind because the beach and the sea were beautiful. We made it to our hostel and couldn’t believe that our entrance was cave like. You wouldn’t imagine the entrance to a hostel being through an alley and downstairs. The man at the desk (which was under the stairs and was also where he slept) showed us a few room options and we settled on two adjacent rooms with a double bed in each. 

The next morning we awoke to explore the beautiful city of Qingdao. We taxied to the Catholic church in hopes of seeing the inside. This was not an option for us and we settled for walking around it and admiring the hoards of brides being photographed.  We found our way down a little street that—according to The Lonely Planet once again—had the phrase “Long Live Chairman Mao” painted on one of the buildings. This phrase was covered up by an air conditioner. 

We continued our meandering through city streets, enjoying the simple beauties of China.  We came across some beautiful sites and some not so beautiful ones as well. Below is a little treasure that I found while wandering around.

After wandering the streets for a while, we decided to visit the another church in the city. It was very German in style, and we could actually go inside this one. When we got inside there was a group of singers practicing for a concert. We asked when the concert was and found out that it was to be on Sunday evening. We all agreed that it would be neat if we could come back for the concert.

After visiting the churches and enjoying downtown, we ventured to the beach where we walked and walked until we found a place for lunch. We settled on a place right on the beach and enjoyed watching people while we ate. It’s interesting to note that most of the people in bathing suits by the beach were men…and they don’t wear bermuda style trunks like we are used to seeing. 🙁 

We stopped for a short time to walk barefooted in the sand and enjoy the water. This was a nice way to relax before continuing on down the beach. It got dark relatively early and we continued down the coast. Off in the distance there were lanterns floating through the air. This was the night of the full moon.  There is a reason why the people let the lanterns go. I’m not sure what it is but it was very cool to see! Two of the the others decided to try this and the lantern went right over the edge into the Yellow Sea.

Before we decided to leave the beach for the night we ended up in Music Square. Of course I thought this was awesome! I got my picture taken with Beethoven (a stone likeness of him, that is) and also photographed the various works of his that were ‘inscribed’ on the ground in the square. After this, we hit up a pizza place for supper, Old Jack’s Cafe for a beer (you can’t go to Qingdao without drinking some of the beer), and then we retired to the cave for the night.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and coffee at the ‘Rich Bakery’ next door to the hostel and read HIS book together.  After getting ready we headed back down to the beach and began where we left off the night before. We made it through the olympic area (Qingdao was the location for the sailing events) and decided it was time to go back downtown for a bite to eat. We found ourselves at the ‘Fanciful Hibiscus Restaurant’ across the street from the Qingdao brewery. We were meeting another teacher and a few of her friends at the brewery shortly after lunch. Here we dined on splendid Chinese cuisine and some dark beer.

After our delightful lunch we crossed Beer Street to visit the brewery. The tour was awful (it was self-guided…I must be a terrible tour guide) but the signs were hilarious! I think I may have more fun taking pictures of Chinglish signs than scenery. After we finished at the brewery we headed back to the cave before the concert at the church. We had a snack at the bakery before going to the church. The church was crowded and it was so cool to see so many people there to worship HIM. I was able to take a few videos of some of the songs which included Panis Angelicus. It was so awesome to hear! The tenor was amazing! After the concert we headed to an Indian restaurant for supper and back to the cave for the night. We had an early train ride the next morning.

We awoke at 4:30 the next morning to get ready to go catch our early train to Taishan. We were on a fast train that only took three hours back to Taishan instead of the six it took to get there from Qingdao. This was the nicest of the three trains that I took on vacation. I managed to spill a whole cup full of milk tea on the floor as the train was tilted. So, the milk tea crept to the other side of the train. This was only slightly embarassing as I got the attention of a random person who looked like she may be on the staff. She was not and kind of looked at me strangely when I did this. I found a real staff member, tapped him on the back and then pointed to the floor. He immediately got his little mop and began to clean up my mess.  This was a source of great entertainment to the people around us. Somehow I always manage to make the Chinese people laugh. Something tells me this will not be the last time.

Taishan 泰山

When one of the other teachers made the suggestion to climb Taishan during our National Holiday vacation, he made it sound like it would be a walk in the park. “It’s all stairs!” was one of the phrases that came out of his mouth. Yes, it was all stairs. However, stairs in China for some reason are six inches wide and rounded. In order to climb Taishan, one must ascend 6660 stairs covering a height of approximately 1.3 km and a distance of 7.5 km. No problem, right? Right. 

We met two other teachers from Wenling at the train station in Taishan before heading to the mountain entrance by minibus. It was great to have new people join us for our travels. 

The first half of the journey up the mountain was decently challenging. In 100m increments, measurements on the stairs told you how high you had climbed. There were hundreds of people climbing the mountain.  At the Midway Gate to Heaven, the group split up. Five of us chose to take the stairs the rest of the way while the other two decided on the cable car. How much further could it be, really? The second half of the climb was much more brutal than the first half. We took many breaks on the way up. During our ascent, many Chinese people wanted to take their picture with us.  Now and then we would hear various ‘hellos’ from random Chinese people.  Apparently this is hilarious to them.

The view at the top left a little to be desired because of the haze but it was still worth the effort. We made it to the top in time for a quick supper before the sunset.  The top of the mountain has its own little town.  There are restaurants, shops, and places to sleep for those who want to catch the sunset the next morning.  This is what we did!

We stayed in a hallway on the eastern side of the mountain.  This was a perfect location for viewing the sunrise in the morning.

After finding our way to our hallway, we spent some time on the porch/balcony enjoying each other’s company. We decided to go to bed fairly early so that we could catch the sunrise the next morning. Little did we know that we wouldn’t get much sleep anyway. Around 11 pm, the hallway came alive with noise as the Chinese people who were staying there decided it was time for bed.  The noise came back around 4:30 in the morning when they decided that it was time to scope out their sun-watching spots.  We also decided that it was a good time to ‘wake up’ since we hadn’t really slept anyway. We went out to the porch/balcony to get a spot to see the sun…and then we waited. The sun appeared and the people cheered.

This was the view of the sun that we had. 

We lingered for a while and then decided to find some breakfast on the mountain. After a quick bite we made the decision to descend the mountain by foot.  We could have taken the cable car down, but down is easier than up, right? 🙂 Down, down, down, we went. We rested more on the way down than on the way up.  This made our legs feel like jello and was pretty hard on our knees.

After making it down the mountain, we picked up our stuff at the train station and headed to the hotel. We then found some supper in Taishan at a really cool restaurant.  I had a great time on the trip. It was awesome to see new parts of HIS creation and to enjoy them with friends!  I can’t wait for the next big adventure!

Below are the people I traveled with.