The last few days have seen me exploring parts of Shandong Province, which may be most famous for its Tsingtao Beer, but alas I did not make it out to the port city of Qingdao where it is brewed. Instead I had to settle for drinking it in Tai’an, a city set at the base of one of China’s five sacred Daoist mountains, Taishan. Taishan is only about 5,000 ft but feels higher when climbing because in China you simply walk straight up stairs instead of winding along a trail. The final stretch is a steep ascent of 1600 stairs called the “Ladder to Heaven” that seemed to stretch forever into the mist that surrounded me at that height. It was tiring, and the starting elevation was low as well. At the peak I got a room and promptly napped. Later in the evening whilst walking about I met a Chinese guy from Hangzhou named David who spoke quite good English and was nice to chat with.

The peak is spread over a few sites, lined along a road paved in stones. Here is where the first Chinese emperor, Qin Shihuang, sacrificed to the gods. He is the same man who had the Terracotta army of Xi’an built, and quite the big deal over here historically. Other from a few temples, the sites are overpriced restaurants and stone carvings which I can’t read. If you so desire, you can get a picture with you and the sunrise courtesy of a photographer with a garishly colored backdrop.

The next morning the hotel owner roused me for sunrise and David and I went out to the rocks to look for it with about 200 other tourists. I think I may have been the only laowai present, which has been a near constant. The sunrise was obscured by clouds, part of the enduring allure of Taishan over the ages, and instead I had to ‘settle’ for a gorgeous hike down the eastern slope through some fantastic scenery. Back in Tai’an, I rested and whiled away the day in and near my hotel there, and my calves still feel as though they have ball bearings lodged in them.

Today I made a quick daytrip down to a city called Qufu, which would otherwise be a simple mid-sized Chinese town if not for a particularly auspicious resident 2500 years ago by the name of Confucius. The main sites, of which there are three, were swarmed of course by Chinese tourists with speaker-toting guides. Nevertheless the grounds at the Confucius Temple were spacious enough to enjoy. It should be noted that everything there dates from well after the sage’s death, built in his honor as memorial.

The same was true of the Confucius Mansions, a hereditary bestowal to his descendants. The captions thankfully used plentiful English, but it seemed the average living quarters were closed off or used for offices. This may be fine for the Chinese who already know, but I was quite curious to see how the aristocracy lived back then, in Asia, and was slightly disappointed. Thankfully the Kong Lin, the cemetery of Confucius and his family members, was fantastic. Set in a wooded area north of the city, it offered a much-appreciated break from urban life and after paying a visit to the tomb marker for the man himself, I moved on to wander the trails. Here I was almost always alone, disrupted only by the occasional electric golf cart ferrying tourists to grab snapshots before they disappeared. The tourists didn’t even get off the carts, and the stops were so brief I hardly saw the point. I enjoyed my walk through the stele-punctuated forest, listening the entire time to some Bob Dylan.

This evening I take a fast train to Beijing and will hopefully pass out peacefully in a hostel bed after arriving. Tori comes in tomorrow afternoon and then the next phase begins in earnest and I have to start asking if its okay before wandering off on a whim. I’m excited to see someone I know, as well as have somebody to experience the sites with me. It should be fun to see Tori’s reactions to China too, as I know and remember some of my first thoughts coming into this place.