After staying in Beijing, it was time to go to Shanghai. I needed a quick stopover because it was just too far in one shot. So I decided to take the train to Shanghai and stop halfway at Taishan for a day to break up the trip and climb a mountain. Supposedly it was famous so I said why not. The train pulls into the city at 10pm and I again have no where to stay and it is late and I am tired. I started to walk around the city to look for a hotel but I couldn't find anything reasonable. Something was strange though. There were so many chinese tourists walking somewhere. I eventually followed them to see what all the excitement was about. As it turns out, they are all climbing the mountain to reach it by sunrise. What a crazy idea.

I later found out it is the thing to do. So having no luck with hotels, I decided I had better join them. And maybe because of the dark I could avoid any stupid entry fees. Of course the first obstacle was to find if the mountain had a wall around it. Of course it did. And the second.. yep, it has a paved path and road all the way up so high heel Chinese tourists could get up. Arrrrgg. Somethings never change. Anyway, I scampered up the mountain and made it to the top by about 4:30 am. I relaxed a little and watched the sunrise. Nothing special. It sure drew a crowd though. Everyone was cheering so I guess it was worth it. -steve