well, after arriving at tai'an, the city at the foot of tai shan, we loitered outside of KFC for about an hour waiting for it to open at 7 AM (our train got in at 5:30AM). after filling up on KFC breakfast food (as that was all that was open at the time), we headed off to begin our pilgrimage to one of the most sacred mountains in china. why is it so sacred? you might ask. well, i will tell you. this mountain has served as a place of pilgrimage for taoists and buddhists alike for centuries. in the creation story of the world told in ancient chinese texts, tai shan is the head of the fallen creator. the other sacred mountains in china make up his hands and feet. the taoist "goddess of the azure clouds" is also said to be resident on the mountain and is accounted as having kicked the founder of buddhism off of the mountain many centuries ago. the climber, if he or she manages to reach the top in the traditional manner of hiking the entire way, is said to live to be 100 years old. many emperors tried to climb the mountain,as their rule would be proven to be divinely ordained if they did so, but only 4 managed to make it all the way to the top. emma and myself, of course, made it to the top. i'm going to be around for a lot longer than most of you would like . . . mwahhhaahhaa.
so the hike was anything but easy and became excrutiating toward the end. we began climbing around 10 AM and made it to the top around 3 PM. we did stop halfway up the mountain for food from a little trail-side "fandian", though. reaching the end of the climb, the surroundings seemed almost otherworldly. i allude it to the castle of the wicked old witch in the wizard of oz and the forests that surround that. the trail seemed to lead into the sky (it was that steep). each step filled my legs with more and more blood until after about 5 steps i felt like they were going to pop. there were men climbing with us who carried food and water up to the restaurants at the top as that is the only way of transporting goods to the summit. they took each step carefully. i did not envy the burden they had to carry.
finally making it to the top, we found a hotel . . . or rather the hotel manager found us. we engaged in the usual haggling of prices until we agreed on 150 yuan for the night (less than $10 per person - not bad for a mountain-top guesthouse with heat!!). we walked around the tiny village at the summit and ran into some taoist monks. some of them were completely hammered. i thought to myself, "is it okay for taoist monks to get drunk . . . i guess so". well, we hung out with them for a while until they let us go up into the attic of one of the temples and ring the prayer gong. the sounds resounded off of the mountain walls - it was beautiful. i cant help but wonder if perhaps it was inappropriate for us to be ringing the gong, but the head monk was out and the taoist monk fraternity wanted to play, so i conceded.
that night we had a modest bowl of noodles as everything else was too expensive (due to the fact that we were at the summit of a mountain and everything had to be carried up by hand). we were in bed by 8 PM . . . passed out.
we roused ourselves at 4:30 AM to watch the sun rise the next day. this is "the thing" to do when you visit tai shan. us and every other chinese pilgrim hiked to the east side of the mountain to watch the momentous occasion. watching the sun rise over the horizon, i was completely affected by the realization that i was one of the first people in the world to see the sun rise on that day. as the sun grew brighter and more intense, so did my fatigue. emma and i decided to sleep for a couple hours more until we hiked down.
my time on the summit of tai shan gave me a new breath of life. i realized that, "i was in fucking china watching the sun rise on top of the most sacred mountain." after being in a place for a while you tend to begin to take experiences for granted, but that sunrise reminded me just how important this time was for me, even if i don't fully know why and how yet.
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