Mountains and Skyscrapers

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Hello loyal readership, I am in Shanghai at the moment- its very impressive and was nice weather until just before chinese new year when it started to rain, I hadnt seen rain since moscow though so i was pretty excited; also being and Englishman it reminded me of the green and pleasant (and wet) land i call home. Anyway, my excitement at the rain swiftly diminished when i had to walk around in it, I suddenly have a craving for the bitingly cold but at least dry weather im used to. Chinese new year was smashing tons of fireworks being thrown around in the street much to the distress of oncoming traffic- chinese people letting off fireworks in their hands or lighting big ones in the middle of the road holding their cigarettes. crazy crazy.

Before i got to Shanghai i stopped off at a big mountain called Tai Shan, its supposed to be the most holy of chinese mountains and a big draw for pilgrims, so i hopped on the train in Beijing and headed off to pilgrimise- I arrived at 11:30pm and decided to head up straight away in order to catch the sunrise. So i start walking up expecting a long but genteel acent.

Six thousand six hundred steps and 4hours 30mins later (I was going to count the steps but i forgot until i was 20mins up the mountain) I reached to summit where it was -20 and i had 3 hours till sunrise. The ascent was anything but genteel the steps are of the same caliber one finds in you house. So with all the effort i was kept relativly warm until i reached the top of course where i had nothing to do and nowhere to go for 3 hours. luckily i found a room to sleep in for a bit and left (what i thought were) strict instructions for my awakening before dawn. anyway 3 hours later i was awoken and i headed off to see the sunrise that is so much talked about, wen to the east side of the summit and prepared to be amazed when i saw that i wasnt actually at the summit- there were what looked to me to be about a million steps more to go. I was quite determined at this point to see the bloody sunset to i set off at a run. up the steps.

Try running u your stairs at home and then imagine about 20 more sets after that.

I have never felt such pain.

I was wheezing and practically dead, much to the amusement of the locals, when i rounded the summit and saw the sun. yes thats right the sun not half of the sun as it rises majestically into being but the whole sun- i had missed sunrise. I uttered a few words along the lines of "Gosh how frustrating" and headed for tea- quite knackered. Of course when i tried to get the cable car down it was out of order so i had to walk all the way down, but that didnt annoy me at all. didnt enrage my sleep deprived, exhausted, cold, wet self. not even slightly.

Im off to Suzhou or something like that tomorrow morning at 9:40 am which will be the earliest ive awoken from a bed that wasnt on a mountain or a train for a long time. Its supposed to be the venice of china so thats exciting.

I shall write from there or from where ever i go after that.

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Photos

Tai Shan
Mmm, mountainous.

Traditional new years lanterns in a market in Shanghai
at least thats what i thought, on closer inspection however they turned out to have coca cola logo plastered all over them. bastards.

Dragon posts
why build 24 dragon posts? well wouldnt you if you had the time?

Detail of plack
is that how you spell plack? its not plaque is it? thats teeth. gosh i dont know.

enormous head of chinese chap
that isnt mao. i was shocked.

money
back in the day they had money that was shaped like swords. if the euro had sword coins then im pretty sure attitudes at home would be different towards it. also youd never have to worry about defending yourself against robbers because youd have a pocket full of swords. might be dangerous though, have to be careful running anywhere.

MAGLEV!
oh yes i went on a superfast magnetic levitation train city/airport one. i didnt fly anywhere jsut went to the airport and came back. got funny looks walking off and then back on the train.
I felt very 2005 using it, when your going 431km/h the other train passes at the same speed in the other direction, the only way to put it is 'way cool'

Turtle
Giant 900 year old statue of a turtle with a stele growing out of its back.

View from Tai Shan
i dont remember it being purple though- i think the camera went funny in the cold; it did take me a while to get the damned thing to work.

more signs
this is the last one i promise. i have to restrain myself from taking photos of signs. my favourite is "PLEASE SPAN" oh and in the back of the taxis in shanghai there is a notice that 'drunkards and psychos may not be allowed to travel ín the taxi alone' and there is to be 'no dumping in the taxi' i tried to photo that one but it didnt come out.

jade thing
i thought it was cool beacause the caption said '51st century BC'. thats very old.