(no subject)
So, where was I?
oh yes. The morning of the fateful day. I actually woke up with knots in my stomach like i was taking a final exam or something that day. I was so afraid that i would be able to do it and i'd just give up. I was afraid that my friends would get annoyed with me constantly needing to stop and take rests that they'd wonder why i even wanted to go in the first place. I woke up early and couldn't fall back asleep. We agreed to meet up at 9:30 so i had 2.5 hours to spend in a lovely Tai'an morning. Elaine and i went walking about to try to find some breakfast. We could a simply delightful little farmer's market and a small alley with lots of little stands to buy things. I got some delicious chinese fry-bread (how traditional!) and bought some ponchos just incase the summit held wetter weather than the base. We went back to the hotel and gathered our belongings and our travel mates, checked out of the hotel and went on our way. The taxi driver dropped us off and pointed up a road lined with litte stands selling various cheap touristy goods. We started up and i counted the steps up until 200 something but this was all very easy with lots of places where it was horizontal and no steps. I don't even think this first part counted as part of the 6,660 steps. We bought our tickets and set out on our way. It didn't take long to divide into the two groups that would remain for the rest of the journey. Mike and Elaine were heading out fast and determined while kirk and i took in the scenery, often from a sitting position. We met a nice chinese boy who walked with us up to the halfway point. He said he's been training for a month to climb this mountain and i could only laugh when i thought of how i ate a lot of beijing oily food and sat around studying for a month. What made me think i could possibly climb this crazy thing? There were many times even to the 1/2 way point where i was extremely tired but for the most part it was a pleasant walk. It wasn't constant steps, there were places where it was just upward sloping road which was a nice break. not too bad. I made it to the 1/2 way point and met up with Elaine and Mike and we ate some lunch.
On the side of a mountain the price of things increases with the altitude because people have to carry it up. These transportation costs were evident at the mid-way point and we joked about how expensive things would be at the top. (haha, little did we know...) It was sometime after lunch we realized that most people (or the intelligent ones, at least) take a bus to the halfway point and just climb the latter half. I think i should make it clear to whomever i tell this story to that i climbed the *entirety* of Taishan. We visited the restrooms, i threw out some of the unnecessary things i packed in my backpack, and headed out to take on the latter half. We soon seperated as Mike and Elaine resumed their fast pace. About ten minutes into this half i wanted to stop. I didn't feel like i'd rested at all even though i was just siting for 45 minutes. My calves resumed their intense burning and they shook violently whenever i just stood still. I couldn't believe that my body was that weak. It's just stairs. All i had to do was lift my foot and push. I kept coming up with silly little mantras that heled me for a hundred or so steps until i was too tired to think. Well i don't know if whatever i can say can fully convey how tired i was. I'm sure you can imagine. Then we got to this gate after which there was probably about 200 very steep constant steps with the final gate at the top. I could see it and it was so close but those 200 steps were probably the hardest. But stepping through that big red gate that i've seen in so many pictures...that i've wanted to walk through since i first decided to come to china was quite simply bliss. I wanted to hug Kirk, i wanted to lay down, i wanted to take everything in all at once and it was almost too much.
We met up wtih Mike and Elaine who had arrived at the top about 15 minutes before us and were already scrounging around their packs to replenish the calories they burned. I intended on doing the exact same thing - right after we found a room.
Thus begins the infamous HOTEL ADVENTURE!!! We walked up to where we thought a hotel might be and we checked out the first one we came to. A man lead us to the rooms and told us that all four of us would be in one room and it would be 100 kuai each. Because we were expecting to pay about 200-250 each, we were estatic and booked the room after a cursory glance. Upon further inspection we realized we didn't have a bathroom, our "beds" were a couple comforters on large wooden boxes and covered in what we could only assume was stains from food? body fluids? i don't know. I was happy to stay, we had a good view. However Mike wasn't so keen on trying to bribe a better hotel to let us take a shower. He went to the front desk and asked if they had any rooms with a bathroom attached. They said for 180 kuai more we could all stay in a room with two beds and a bathroom. We agreed and felt stupid for taking the first room they showed us and for letting them rip us off so bad for such shitty rooms. We got comfy in our fluffy beds and checked out the bathroom. Ok. The water wasn't working and when it was working, it was freezing cold. And the heater wasn't turning on. Mike kept going to the front desk to ask about these minor setbacks and they kept saying that the water and the heat would both be turned on at seven. We signed grumpily and headed out to check out the sights without the added weight of our backpacks. We climbed out onto precarious cliffs and took beautious pictures, we went to the Jade Emperor Temple which is the higest point on the mountain, and we staked out our location to watch the sunset. Nearby we saw a little restaurant and we were reminded that we were severely hungry and went to check it out. The prices were double the expensive restaurants we were taken to in Qufu. We went to the cheap section of the menu and got "jian bings" which is our favourite street food in beijing. We also got a bowl of rice for each of us but we didn't see it on the menu. The jian bings turned out to be nasty bearly-edible paper stuff in which you were supposed to roll some onion twigs. And the rice, while was delicious as far as white rice goes, turned out to be 15 kuai per bowl. We ended up paying almost 100 yuan for the crappiest peal i've eaten in china. We left the restauruant poorer, grumpier, and still painfully hungry. Elaine went back to the room because it was bitterly cold and she was tired while Mike, Kirk and I watched the sunset. Beautious.
We went back to the room and Mike took a shower that was ice-cold and the water ran out while he was covered in soap. I decided i would be perfectly happy remaining dirty. Kirk and i were the smelliest so we slept in the same bed and huddled for warmth. Before we fell asleep we watched this Chinese game show where families did little skits and singing and the audience voted on how well they were doing. If the audience vote fell below 50% they were escorted off stage. The Mongolians won, of course.
in the morning we were awoken to the sound of someone banging on our door and screaming something in Chinese that none of us understood. Was the mountain crumbling down? Was there some sort of alien attack? I was startled until I realized he was waking everyone us to see the sunrise. How nice! Elaine and I woke up and rented coats and set out in the bitter cold surrounded by hundreds of people all wearing the same green Mao coats and all heading in the same direction. It reminded me of the Lemmings game and I was nearly as impressed with the climbing mass of humanity as i was with the sunrise sunset was indeed really really gorgeous and i took about a trillion pictures that don't really do it justice. you'll just have to see it for yourself. :)
After going back to the hotel room i had to use the bathroom. The bathroom here was nothing more than a room with a deep trough down the middle. SUPER SQUATTING. That wasn't the bad part. I was happily squatting and doing my business when a chinese girl came in and i realized it wasn't a one-person bathroom. Heh... she saw more of me than anyone has in a long time. I've lost a lot of my modesty here.
We went back to the hotel room and found out that Mike and Kirk both went out to see the sunrise as well but Kirk had gotten distracted along the way so it was just Mike in the room. I walked in and said something about how it smelled like it was burning. No one listens to little fuzzy though until she walks in the bathroom and screams "THE WATER HEATER IS ON FIRE!!!" Our water heater had flames licking out of it and dense smoke formed a layer at the ceiling. Mike ran to get someone to do something about it and I took pictures as the hose melted and fell off. We packed our stuff quickly and prepared to get out of there as soon as possible. However, we had to contend with the small army of chinese men who were trying to tell us it was our fault that the water heater caught on fire even though it was a mechanical defect. It is supposed to fill back up with water automatically after it is emptied but this one didn't. They said something about how we were supposed to get someone from the front desk to fill it for us but no one told us that. Mike ended up in a pretty intense screaming match while Elaine, Kirk and I hid in the "lobby". What should we do? They wanted us to pay more but we were convinced it wasn't our fault and they already severly ripped us off. So we gave up any chance of getting our deposit back and just booked it as fast as we could. Yep. We were pretty much going to get arrested or something, i was convinced.
It was at this point that we lost track of Kirk and i pictured him being dragged back to the hotel by a gang of chinese men. They were torturing him in some dark alley way, throwing him into the bathroom trough. How would we explain it to the authorities? To his parents? "The bathroom caught on fire, we ran away, but Kirk didn't make it." He was actually buying fry bread. It was in those few moments that I realized that I have very intense motherly instincts. If i am with a group of people i automatically assume the position of the protector, organizer, reprimander. Too bad i'd be a horrible mom.
We were grumpy and in a hurry to get back to Tai'an because we wanted to see if we could get an earlier train back to Beijing because there was less to do at the summit of the mountian than we thought and we were pretty much done. Unfortunately the cable cars were not operating because there was too much wind so we had to go all the way back down to the 1/2 way point. I bought a T-shirt on the way and we hopped in a bus and headed back to the city. We got to the train station and found out that we couldn't get any earlier trains to Beijing. So there we were in a city with no hotel room and about 16 hours to kill. We walk about. Eat some food. Sleep in the train station. got assaulted by a veritable parade of beggars one of which conned Kirk into giving her his bottle of water. this day was fairly uneventful as we had no money left and we were all dreading our "standing" seven hour trip back to Beijing.
Come to find out there are seats, but they aren't assigned. And there are more tickets than seats so there is a very good possibility that you would be standing. We boarded the train and got a seat next to some fat chinese businessmen who had a soft spot for foreigners. Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all. Mike and I stayed up and had deep conversation about life, religion, politics, and sex toys. My motherly instinct took over as Kirk fell asleep and i tried to get the seat next to him so he could lean on me. haha.
Morning eventually came and we arrived in Beijing. As the train was approaching the station the businessmen we were sitting near began to pull these bags out from under the seats that were dripping wet. I was grossed out by that but then he bagan to open them and inside were LIVE animals. Live turtles and crabs and lobsters and snakes and creatures i couldn't identify. He picked up one bag of crabs and they started escaping crawling around the train. After this trip of absilute insanity it was the funniest thing i've ever seen and i was practically rolling on the floor with the crabs laughing.
We hauled our tired sore bodies back to school only to start class in less than two hours. on the way into school we stopped to get real Beijing bings and I don't think food has ever tasted so good in my entire life.
That's my story and i'm sticking to it!
oh yes. The morning of the fateful day. I actually woke up with knots in my stomach like i was taking a final exam or something that day. I was so afraid that i would be able to do it and i'd just give up. I was afraid that my friends would get annoyed with me constantly needing to stop and take rests that they'd wonder why i even wanted to go in the first place. I woke up early and couldn't fall back asleep. We agreed to meet up at 9:30 so i had 2.5 hours to spend in a lovely Tai'an morning. Elaine and i went walking about to try to find some breakfast. We could a simply delightful little farmer's market and a small alley with lots of little stands to buy things. I got some delicious chinese fry-bread (how traditional!) and bought some ponchos just incase the summit held wetter weather than the base. We went back to the hotel and gathered our belongings and our travel mates, checked out of the hotel and went on our way. The taxi driver dropped us off and pointed up a road lined with litte stands selling various cheap touristy goods. We started up and i counted the steps up until 200 something but this was all very easy with lots of places where it was horizontal and no steps. I don't even think this first part counted as part of the 6,660 steps. We bought our tickets and set out on our way. It didn't take long to divide into the two groups that would remain for the rest of the journey. Mike and Elaine were heading out fast and determined while kirk and i took in the scenery, often from a sitting position. We met a nice chinese boy who walked with us up to the halfway point. He said he's been training for a month to climb this mountain and i could only laugh when i thought of how i ate a lot of beijing oily food and sat around studying for a month. What made me think i could possibly climb this crazy thing? There were many times even to the 1/2 way point where i was extremely tired but for the most part it was a pleasant walk. It wasn't constant steps, there were places where it was just upward sloping road which was a nice break. not too bad. I made it to the 1/2 way point and met up with Elaine and Mike and we ate some lunch.
On the side of a mountain the price of things increases with the altitude because people have to carry it up. These transportation costs were evident at the mid-way point and we joked about how expensive things would be at the top. (haha, little did we know...) It was sometime after lunch we realized that most people (or the intelligent ones, at least) take a bus to the halfway point and just climb the latter half. I think i should make it clear to whomever i tell this story to that i climbed the *entirety* of Taishan. We visited the restrooms, i threw out some of the unnecessary things i packed in my backpack, and headed out to take on the latter half. We soon seperated as Mike and Elaine resumed their fast pace. About ten minutes into this half i wanted to stop. I didn't feel like i'd rested at all even though i was just siting for 45 minutes. My calves resumed their intense burning and they shook violently whenever i just stood still. I couldn't believe that my body was that weak. It's just stairs. All i had to do was lift my foot and push. I kept coming up with silly little mantras that heled me for a hundred or so steps until i was too tired to think. Well i don't know if whatever i can say can fully convey how tired i was. I'm sure you can imagine. Then we got to this gate after which there was probably about 200 very steep constant steps with the final gate at the top. I could see it and it was so close but those 200 steps were probably the hardest. But stepping through that big red gate that i've seen in so many pictures...that i've wanted to walk through since i first decided to come to china was quite simply bliss. I wanted to hug Kirk, i wanted to lay down, i wanted to take everything in all at once and it was almost too much.
We met up wtih Mike and Elaine who had arrived at the top about 15 minutes before us and were already scrounging around their packs to replenish the calories they burned. I intended on doing the exact same thing - right after we found a room.
Thus begins the infamous HOTEL ADVENTURE!!! We walked up to where we thought a hotel might be and we checked out the first one we came to. A man lead us to the rooms and told us that all four of us would be in one room and it would be 100 kuai each. Because we were expecting to pay about 200-250 each, we were estatic and booked the room after a cursory glance. Upon further inspection we realized we didn't have a bathroom, our "beds" were a couple comforters on large wooden boxes and covered in what we could only assume was stains from food? body fluids? i don't know. I was happy to stay, we had a good view. However Mike wasn't so keen on trying to bribe a better hotel to let us take a shower. He went to the front desk and asked if they had any rooms with a bathroom attached. They said for 180 kuai more we could all stay in a room with two beds and a bathroom. We agreed and felt stupid for taking the first room they showed us and for letting them rip us off so bad for such shitty rooms. We got comfy in our fluffy beds and checked out the bathroom. Ok. The water wasn't working and when it was working, it was freezing cold. And the heater wasn't turning on. Mike kept going to the front desk to ask about these minor setbacks and they kept saying that the water and the heat would both be turned on at seven. We signed grumpily and headed out to check out the sights without the added weight of our backpacks. We climbed out onto precarious cliffs and took beautious pictures, we went to the Jade Emperor Temple which is the higest point on the mountain, and we staked out our location to watch the sunset. Nearby we saw a little restaurant and we were reminded that we were severely hungry and went to check it out. The prices were double the expensive restaurants we were taken to in Qufu. We went to the cheap section of the menu and got "jian bings" which is our favourite street food in beijing. We also got a bowl of rice for each of us but we didn't see it on the menu. The jian bings turned out to be nasty bearly-edible paper stuff in which you were supposed to roll some onion twigs. And the rice, while was delicious as far as white rice goes, turned out to be 15 kuai per bowl. We ended up paying almost 100 yuan for the crappiest peal i've eaten in china. We left the restauruant poorer, grumpier, and still painfully hungry. Elaine went back to the room because it was bitterly cold and she was tired while Mike, Kirk and I watched the sunset. Beautious.
We went back to the room and Mike took a shower that was ice-cold and the water ran out while he was covered in soap. I decided i would be perfectly happy remaining dirty. Kirk and i were the smelliest so we slept in the same bed and huddled for warmth. Before we fell asleep we watched this Chinese game show where families did little skits and singing and the audience voted on how well they were doing. If the audience vote fell below 50% they were escorted off stage. The Mongolians won, of course.
in the morning we were awoken to the sound of someone banging on our door and screaming something in Chinese that none of us understood. Was the mountain crumbling down? Was there some sort of alien attack? I was startled until I realized he was waking everyone us to see the sunrise. How nice! Elaine and I woke up and rented coats and set out in the bitter cold surrounded by hundreds of people all wearing the same green Mao coats and all heading in the same direction. It reminded me of the Lemmings game and I was nearly as impressed with the climbing mass of humanity as i was with the sunrise sunset was indeed really really gorgeous and i took about a trillion pictures that don't really do it justice. you'll just have to see it for yourself. :)
After going back to the hotel room i had to use the bathroom. The bathroom here was nothing more than a room with a deep trough down the middle. SUPER SQUATTING. That wasn't the bad part. I was happily squatting and doing my business when a chinese girl came in and i realized it wasn't a one-person bathroom. Heh... she saw more of me than anyone has in a long time. I've lost a lot of my modesty here.
We went back to the hotel room and found out that Mike and Kirk both went out to see the sunrise as well but Kirk had gotten distracted along the way so it was just Mike in the room. I walked in and said something about how it smelled like it was burning. No one listens to little fuzzy though until she walks in the bathroom and screams "THE WATER HEATER IS ON FIRE!!!" Our water heater had flames licking out of it and dense smoke formed a layer at the ceiling. Mike ran to get someone to do something about it and I took pictures as the hose melted and fell off. We packed our stuff quickly and prepared to get out of there as soon as possible. However, we had to contend with the small army of chinese men who were trying to tell us it was our fault that the water heater caught on fire even though it was a mechanical defect. It is supposed to fill back up with water automatically after it is emptied but this one didn't. They said something about how we were supposed to get someone from the front desk to fill it for us but no one told us that. Mike ended up in a pretty intense screaming match while Elaine, Kirk and I hid in the "lobby". What should we do? They wanted us to pay more but we were convinced it wasn't our fault and they already severly ripped us off. So we gave up any chance of getting our deposit back and just booked it as fast as we could. Yep. We were pretty much going to get arrested or something, i was convinced.
It was at this point that we lost track of Kirk and i pictured him being dragged back to the hotel by a gang of chinese men. They were torturing him in some dark alley way, throwing him into the bathroom trough. How would we explain it to the authorities? To his parents? "The bathroom caught on fire, we ran away, but Kirk didn't make it." He was actually buying fry bread. It was in those few moments that I realized that I have very intense motherly instincts. If i am with a group of people i automatically assume the position of the protector, organizer, reprimander. Too bad i'd be a horrible mom.
We were grumpy and in a hurry to get back to Tai'an because we wanted to see if we could get an earlier train back to Beijing because there was less to do at the summit of the mountian than we thought and we were pretty much done. Unfortunately the cable cars were not operating because there was too much wind so we had to go all the way back down to the 1/2 way point. I bought a T-shirt on the way and we hopped in a bus and headed back to the city. We got to the train station and found out that we couldn't get any earlier trains to Beijing. So there we were in a city with no hotel room and about 16 hours to kill. We walk about. Eat some food. Sleep in the train station. got assaulted by a veritable parade of beggars one of which conned Kirk into giving her his bottle of water. this day was fairly uneventful as we had no money left and we were all dreading our "standing" seven hour trip back to Beijing.
Come to find out there are seats, but they aren't assigned. And there are more tickets than seats so there is a very good possibility that you would be standing. We boarded the train and got a seat next to some fat chinese businessmen who had a soft spot for foreigners. Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all. Mike and I stayed up and had deep conversation about life, religion, politics, and sex toys. My motherly instinct took over as Kirk fell asleep and i tried to get the seat next to him so he could lean on me. haha.
Morning eventually came and we arrived in Beijing. As the train was approaching the station the businessmen we were sitting near began to pull these bags out from under the seats that were dripping wet. I was grossed out by that but then he bagan to open them and inside were LIVE animals. Live turtles and crabs and lobsters and snakes and creatures i couldn't identify. He picked up one bag of crabs and they started escaping crawling around the train. After this trip of absilute insanity it was the funniest thing i've ever seen and i was practically rolling on the floor with the crabs laughing.
We hauled our tired sore bodies back to school only to start class in less than two hours. on the way into school we stopped to get real Beijing bings and I don't think food has ever tasted so good in my entire life.
That's my story and i'm sticking to it!