Day 45 - Trip to Mount Tai

Day 45

We were invited by Shandong University to go to Mount Tai today.  We met Christina from the Foreign Teachers Office by the south gate of our campus at 8 a.m.  The Pace’s and Clarke’s came and also Danny, Lynn, Jason and two Korean teachers.  It was a long two hour ride to get to the starting point of Mount Tai.

Our first view of Mount Tai.  It was mostly hidden by the haze but cleared later.

The gondola ride up the mountain.

The Pace's, Stan and Nancy, and Danny on the way up.

It looked pretty scary in places, but ran quite smoothly.

Up to the top.  The guide said that there was a community of about 200 people that lived here year round.

At the "Gate of Heaven."  That's what they called it, so we all had to say we were at the gate of heaven today.

One of the views.

Another view.

Now we are on the street of heaven!

Yes, we did climb ALL those stairs!

One of the shrines.

David is holding a five yuan bill, that has this exact scene on the back of it, minus the people of course...

When a young couple in love climbs to the top of Mount Tai, they can buy a lock and "lock in their love."  Kind of cute.  We are at the shrine of the "Lady of Heaven."

The red ribbons represent prayers said.

Here is David playing the piano with the little girl and boy watching.  The guy in the yellow clothing is the Korean, Kim, who also sat down and played a few songs.

The little girl was so interested in watching David play.

Mount Tai is famous because is it one of the tallest mountains in China (outside of the Himalayas).  Emperors for many centuries have come here.  It is the only mountain in China that they allow three different beliefs to worship in the same place; Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism.  There are several shrines at the top and people like to make a pilgrimage here to do their worshipping.  If you start at the bottom with the steps, there are over 6000 steps.  It climbs to a height of over 1500 meters (about a mile). 

When we arrived at the base of Mount Tai, we were loaded onto a bus that drove very fast up a steep, narrow, very winding road.  There were many hairpin turns and blind corners and there were other cars and buses going up and down the mountain.  Who needs Disneyland when you have Chinese drivers doing this!!  We did arrive safely at the top and from there we rode a gondola the rest of the way, well almost the rest of the way.  We still had to climb probably 300 more stairs to get to see it all. 

We were taken by a guide to see the different shrines.  Lots of steps!  LOTS of steps!!  At one point, Libby Clarke was so tired of steps, she asked if they would be coming back to a certain point and when the guide said they would, she decided to stay there and rest.  I stayed with her.  As we were chatting, we had several people ask to take pictures with us.  There was one woman that came and was standing really close to us and it looked like she was surreptitiously trying to have her picture taken with us, so I invited her to come stand closer to us.  Pretty soon we had the whole family around us and after the husband took several pictures, he handed the camera to someone else and they took pictures with him in it also. 

There is a hotel and a restaurant at the top of Mount Tai.  We had lunch there but had to wait for about a half hour or so before we could eat at the buffet.  There was a piano in the lobby that was covered up and because we have not had a chance to play for so long, David asked if he could play it.  They said he could, so we uncovered it and he played several songs.  The Korean man that was with us, sat down and played.  He has had no formal training, but plays by ear.  He was good, too.  I sat down and played one song, also.  David had quite an audience that included two young children.  A boy and girl, about 6 and 4 respectively it seemed, came up and wanted to get close.  The girl was wiggling her fingers toward the piano like she wanted to play.  At one point she started dancing.  They both came in quite close to watch.  We can say that we played the piano of the top of Mount Tai now!

After lunch, we made our way back down lots of steps to the gondola station and then the bus ride back down the mountain was almost as eventful as the ride up, with a little less traffic.  I just didn’t think you could take hairpin turns at 40 mph!

After we arrived back in Ji’nan and we were dropped off at the campus, we went to the International Student’s Office Building with the Clarke’s because they told us they sold Shandong Campus T-shirts there, but that is only in the summer.  For winter, they sell sweatshirts.  Not wanting a sweatshirt, we declined and just bought an ice cream bar.

We had to go get some printer ink and a few groceries at the Uni-Mart and stopped for some grapes at a street vendor.  One of David’s students came over to introduce us to a girl that will be helping us with some purchases on Tuesday, because he promised he would go with us, but he has to do a presentation in his own class then, so she will help us.  Had a video chat with Caleb, Bethany and Aleeyah before going to bed.