china

While they don’t celebrate Christmas officially in China, Qingdao is a very modern city and loads of retail shops were getting in on the act. There are constant reminders that December 25th is coming, and Welm was given the day off from her work (though other foreigners she knows were not so lucky). Our Qingdao “Christmas” was hardly traditional, but a memorable day anyway:

waking up really late; watching The Producers on DVD; an excellent late lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant; taking a long walk along the very modern waterfront in the east of the city (Qingdao is beautiful in parts, but it’s also so modern/generic that some areas could be mistaken for any western city), a tandem treatment of one hour foot massage followed by one hour full body massage, Chinese-style; then watching The Dark Knight while eating possibly the best pizza I’ve ever tasted.

Merry Christmas, y’all

Tai Shan mountain has been revered as a mystical place for several thousand years, and the earliest summit temples were erected in 354BC. It remains the holiest of all Taoist mountains in China and attracts millions of visitors a year.

 

However this chill December day it feels like I’ve got the place to myself. Over the centuries wide stone steps (6660 of ’em) have been erected along the full length of the climb, but it’s still a challenge to mount the last, very steep section to the top. As the temperature was well below zero there was ice and snow on the upper steps, though thankfully a handrail has been added to prevent slippage. And it’s definitely worth the climb! The summit has several vantage points in each direction, all offering truly spectacular views up to 200kms on a clear day.

 

But the most amazing thing to do, apparently, is to watch the sun rise from North Prayer Rock. So I booked into an empty hotel for the night so I could do just that. In the summertime I’m sure it’s a buzzing place but right now it’s on skeleton duty, with just four caretakers sharing a dorm room and administering the few casual guests who stay. There are no other guests tonight, and though the room is toasty warm the toilet I’m sharing with the staff is, erm…. rustic in the extreme. At least it’s cheap, with rates 1/3 of normal (rates are triple normal in peak holiday season). Food, on the other hand, is far from cheap.

 

The dawn experience was lovely, though not out of this world. I had a prime perch all to myself, and waited patiently for the sun to rise above the distant clouds. It was not perfectly clear but neither was it foggy. While waiting a photo tout came along, and in the end I succumbed and allowed him to take a few photos both with my camera and his. He then took me to a few other photogenic spots for some posed shots, then we started talking turkey. The most amazing part of the whole experience for me was how they were printed. Photos were taken with a digital camera, and afterwards from a shed he and a mate carried out a large black metal chest. Inside the chest was a computer, inkjet printer and laminator! All photos were printed on the spot, and some of them are quite good. But the funniest thing was that it was so cold (somewhere around -10 celcius) that they had to use a hair dryer for several minutes to heat up the computer and printer enough so they would work. True story!

The weather isn’t as dire as predicted, but it’s still C-O-L-D. Looking out the double-glazed window of my room it seems like it should be okay as it’s sunny and dry, but it’s tough to walk around outside for more than twenty minutes. There is no thermometer around to tell me exactly what the temperature is and the news reports won’t be on until the evening, so mid-afternoon I put a glass of water outside my window to see whether it froze. After an hour it was part ice, after three it was solid. It’s windy too. [Note: the TV news just said today’s temp range in nearby Ji’nan was -11 to -4]

I don’t expect things to improve until Tuesday, so I’ve decided to hole up for three days in Tai’an. If the weather improves I’ll climb Tai Shan tomorrow, but if not this is a fine place to relax. My modern hotel room is excellent and cheap (Y200, or $A45, a night) with comfortable double bed, cable TV with flat screen, great shower with hot hot water and that holiest of holies: central heating. Perfect for hunkering down when icy weather closes in 🙂

Tai’an is a nice city, much more modern and clean than Qufu or Bengbu and its compact centre is easy to navigate. Apart from Tai Shan there is a magnificent Temple in the heart of the city and loads of internet cafes, shops and restaurants. As I write the sky is clear and has that sharp light that only a mountainous region can deliver, but even in the bright afternoon sun occasional wisps of snow float crazily through the air. It reminds me of hill country service towns in NSW like Cowra, or Canowindra: relaxed, almost sleepy, but outward-looking and welcoming to tourists. Amazing given that its population is about 800,000.

I bought Fuschia Dunlop’s foodie memoir Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper as part of my preparatory reading, but events of the last few months took over and I never got past the first chapter. Now, with time on my hands, I’ve dug it out and spent the best part of an afternoon lost in her tales of learning Sichuan cookery in Chengdu in the mid-1990s. Her delightfully descriptive writing is compelling at any time, but after a week in China I can now imagine her world with magical clarity. If you like food and/or China, this book is highly recommended.

I’m sitting in a proper internet cafe for the first time this trip, and am taking advantage of the opportunity to check the weather forecast. So far conditions have been still and clear (except for smog) every day, generally fine though it is naturally getting colder the further north I travel. Perfect really, given the season.

However I’ve just checked the forecast for the next couple of days, and I may have to change my plans. I am intending to go to Tai’an today so I can climb the famous mountain of Tai Shan tomorrow, stay overnight on the peak then watch the sunrise before heading back down again. It’s a 7.5km journey to the summit, a hard slog but not impossible and certainly well worth the effort I’ve been told. You can go up and back in about eight hours, but it’s recommended to stay up top overnight to make the most of it.

I was expecting (hoping) conditions to stay the same for the next few days, but according to weathercity.com a front is moving in tomorrow. Winds of up to 50kmh, snow and temperatures plummeting to -14 degrees celcius. Yes, there is a minus sign in front of that number. And that’s actually for Ji’nan which is the provincial capital 65km away, up on the mountain it is bound to be much worse.

I will still go to Tai’an as planned, and see how things are on Sunday. Don’t worry I won’t be a hero, I’m quite happy to stay an extra day or two in Tai’an and chill out (no pun intended!) before conditions pick up again. And if I don’t get to climb the mountain…. well it’s an excellent reason to return here one day! I aim to meet up with Welm in Qingdao on Christmas Eve 😀

Qufu in Shandong province is revered in Chinese culture as the home of Confucius. The ancient scribe laid the foundations for so much in Chinese society, and in Qufu you will find the Confucius Temple, Confucius Mansions and Confucius Forest where he and nearly all his descendants are buried.

Naturally enough it is a tourist hotspot, and I decided to give it a shot after missing so many highlights in Shanghai. It’s also on the way to Qingdao and the mountain of Tai Shan, which I’ll climb on Sunday. Arriving as the guidebook suggested at the nearby town of Yanzhou, I rejected the offers of a taxi to Qufu as I really needed to stretch my legs after the journey from Bengbu. Unlike the express from Shanghai this was a local train, ostensibly with reserved seating but in practice people just sat wherever they could. Discovering all the seats around mine were taken, I stoicly stood in the aisle and wore the stares with ease. I was the only foreigner on this train, I’m sure.

Almost immediately a guy nearby stood up and offered me his seat. I refused, so he started asking me some questions about where I was from and where I was going. Soon he shyly tried his English, which though basic was still far better than my Mandarin! We had a halting conversation over the next hour, and ended up sharing a corner of the bench as we chatted. He works in Inner Mongolia as a manager, and if I ever get to Hohhot I’ve got somewhere to stay. The journey was bum-numbingly slow though, over four hours on an aptly-named “hard seat”.

After a short stroll to regain feeling in my legs I headed back to the train station to get one of those taxis to Qufu. While walking through the carpark a guy approached me to ask if I wanted to go to Qufu, and indicated his brand new VW Passat. I checked the price (Y50, A$11), and as it was only Y10 ($2) less than I would have paid for a typically dilapidated Chinese taxi I said yes straight away. A soft seat never felt so comfortable! During the short journey we chatted, and when I said I planned to go to Tai Shan the following day he offered to drive me there. The price seemed steep at Y250 (A$55), but I thought about it and in the end decided I’d do it. It’s about 80km, and otherwise I would still have to pay for a taxi back to Yanzhou, then the train fare, and it would all be in much less comfort and take much longer than the luxury car. And I figured there’s nothing wrong with a bit of luxury on holiday, is there? Plenty of time to rough it again later on…

All this detail is to avoid talking about Qufu, which frankly is quite dreary. The attractions themselves are nice enough, but at this time of year tourists are rare and there is a desperate air about the place. Not to mention smog, which is worse than anywhere I’ve been so far. For you smog-watchers out there, it seems to get worse the further inland you travel. This is the first town where I’ve been openly ripped off (over food), and some of the trinket sellers are particularly aggressive. However despite that it is an excellent place to load up on said trinkets as the quality can be fine. I think I will do most of my gift shopping here 🙂