Mount Tai, or Tai Shan, is the most revered of the five sacred Taoist mountains of China, and we decided we would check it out. We parted from Joy and Earl, only to endure one of those really fun, energy-draining travel days on 5-6 buses taking about 14 hours from start to finish! Next day we climbed the mountain. The well made, well trodden path was 4-5 miles long with 4,700ft of ascent and with 6,660 steps all the way to the top! It must have taken an army to build them. Making it a little more pleasant though, was the fact that there weren't too many people climbing, apart from a few little old ladies skipping along beside us trying to sell us their wares - lucky trinkets and very useful statues of Confucius! The climb was surprisingly okay, and it wasn't until the very last steps that we were ready to be 'beamed up' to the top.
We explored the village at the summit a little. The working monastery on the top was quite different from ones we'd seen before: the monks had lots of hair in a bun on their head and a chopstick going through it! We found a classy place to stay overnight with minimal heating and no hotwater, so that we could get up and watch sunrise. Unfortunately, we shared the experience with the other hundreds of chinese tourists who took the early cable car! As much as we have really enjoyed the chinese people when we make a connection with them, they have a few habits that our culture would find hard to tolerate, namely, making as much noise as possible at all times, hacking and spitting, and throwing litter everywhere. As a result, sunrise wasn't very peaceful, or for that matter, very sacred! * Mush
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