Beat a hasty retreat out of Shanghai and boarded a flight to Jinan, capital of Shandong province. The airport is some 40 kilometers away from the city and transportation could be a problem. One idea is to register with the few hotel representatives; they will provide transport to the downtown hotel.
Heihuquan
Jinan is known as spring city, as there are quite a few offspring of tectonic activity (I know, bad pun). I visited Baotuquan, which has a sign that says the spring is particularly active after heavy rainfall. My suspicion is that the underground water table has fallen after years of industrialization and population growth. The other spring I saw was Heihuquan, another damp firecracker. The last sight on my itinerary was Daming Lake. There weren’t too many tourists as the weather was already quite cool.
Moving eastwards, I made my way to the coastal city of Qingdao. Normally visitors come during the summer months for the beer festival and stretches of beaches. But Qingdao is also known for its European architecture; as the place was once occupied by German forces.
The next day I joined a local tour of LaoShan. As a kid, I used to drink quite a bit of LaoShan mineral water, but in recent years I've hardly seen the stuff in supermarkets. We were taken to Taiching Palace, a Taoist temple. According to my ticket the place was built in the West Han period, 140 B.C.. On the way back I stopped off at Lu Xun Park. There is a Navy Museum nearby that charges RMB 15 admission. No high tech weapons of mass destruction here; but interesting if you’re a history fan.
The 286 train to Yantai turned out to be a rare occurrence in a country of 1.3 billion: the train was virtually empty. I took the opportunity to update my journal and caught the attention of the passenger sitting opposite me. Nothing goes unnoticed in China; especially a backpacker that starts writing away on a long train journey.
Since I only wanted to catch the boat to Dalian, sightseeing was limited to the Smoke Terrace Tower. The high speed ferry service to Dalian cost RMB 169. The seas here can be quite rough and on this occasion we ran into level 6 winds. Within an hour of sailing, the cabin was croaking with the cacophony of motion induced regurgitation. Last year (1999) there was a ship that sank in these waters.
7 May 1999
The mind numbing experience of long distance traveling comes in different grades, some cruder than the rest. Today’s marathon started at 05:40 in Kaifeng and would end in Taian by 16:00 or so. Aside from the usual grievances, summer serves a variety of nuisances. Flies. Swarms of them. The bugs have developed an acute form of radar perception, that allows them to use your head and face as a landing strip. At least while you’re fending off the critters, you can try to fan the nasty fumes emanating from the guy with b.o. away from yourself.
Dai Temple now costs RMB 20 and at the time there was renovation going on in the west wing. My ticket / pamphlet says that Mount Tai stands 1,545 meters tall and covers an area of 426 square kilometers. There are 22 historical buildings, 97 archaeological sites and 2,000 rock carvings. The place was also declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in December 1987.