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Published: September 25th 2006
Sea of Clouds
Mountains breaking through the sea of clouds.Because we are nearly finished the school decided for our going away they would shut down for two days and take a trip to a nearby mountain named TaiShan. It is touted here as the most famous mountain in China, and I have read that it is the most climbed mountain in the world. (Wich doesn't suprise me after seeing the amount of people going up and down while we were there) All the way up the have build an 8Km walking path, made mostly of stairs, and along the way there are shops, stalls, rest stops, and very cool very antient Tsaoist and Bhuddist temples. Some of the temples are so old that there origins cant be traced, but now of course they are completely renovated and seem to have almost no religious or spiritual meaning.
The bus ride to the mountain was HORRIBLE! Why you ask? traffic? roads? nope... kareoke. For four solid hours we listened to our boss belt out the classics of China, I swear he didn't hit one note. Something to do with saving face, the whole keeping your pride thing... but no one has the guts to say... "ok, thats enough." when someone is
Stairs at Night
Climbing the mountain in the dead of night. hogging the mic. It made for an interesting drive.
We started climbing the mountain at 9 at night, flashlights in hand, and it didnt take long for all of the chinese people to want to stop to eat. God only knows how everyone is skinny here, i swear all they do is eat. They ate the whole way there, then sat down 10 minutes in and ate a whole meal. So we quickly got ahead of them and ended up walking most of the mountain alone. It was veeerry difficuly, and in total took us about 5 hours. The top was extremely cold during the night, and I cant imagine what it would be like in the winter. As is the tradition, we waited for a few hours to watch the sunrise from the very summit of the mountain, about 1500m high. The sun rose and revealed an amazing sea of clouds, with other nearby peaks breaking through, it was truly breathtaking, making the climb well worth it.
We stuck around the top for a while, got some pics and looked at some antient calligraphy carved into the cliffs by emperors of the past, and then made our
Patrick and the Girls
Selina Alice Angel Patrick before the climb way down. On the way down we got to see all the scenery we were missing in the dead of night, and it was really quite beautiful. Also because it was during the day there were people everywhere. The walk down was a lot easier and we concluded that it was a good thing we climbed at night, so we couldnt see the mass amount of stairs ahead of us.
Then we went to McDonalds!
As of today (25th September) we have 5 days left in Linyi, and we are beginning to say our goodbyes to the many many friends we have made... it is quite sad but at the same time we are very pumped to get travelling and meet up with the boys in Thailand! October 1st we join the Holiday rush for Beijing where we will hit the usuals (forbidden city, tienanmen square, the great wall etc. then its all the way down south to Xiamen.) Hopefully we'll update with pics from the many places we see before we get on the plane to Bangkok October 21st. Peace, all!
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TravelQueen
Marissa Nakos
Wow - Amazing!
What a great blog! Brought back all those horrible, yet rewarding memories of climbing Mt Fuji! The scenery as you were climbing down looked spectacular! Good luck with your travels throughout Sout East Asia - will look forward to more entries and photos! - Marissa in Japan xx