testing 1, 2, 3

Hello from the foot of Tai Shan, one of the "big five" Taoist mountains in China. Megan and I are in the midst of our 8-day holiday from school for National Day and the Mid-Autumn festival. We took a train from Huai'an north to Qingdao, in the Shandong Province, right on the Yellow Sea. After a few days of sharing the privileged expat life (peanut butter and cheese in the grocery stores, coffee shops with real coffee), we rode hard seat on the train west here to Tai'an.

 

Lonely Planet regained some respect (We've had a few bouts with misinformation.) after we easily hopped a bus to this dumpling spot where we devoured some sweet sweet potato mess, Cokes, tea, 20 mutton dumplings and 20 carrot dumplings -- we took the rest to go. We're waiting around til the clock strikes 12 to embark on our night hike up Tai Shan so we can make it up and watch the sun rise, which the Chinese believe is an integral part of hiking any mountain.

 

I don't know what this blog looks like or if this emailed post will actually show up since the blogs here are still inaccessible, so I'll just see if this works, and if it does, more to come!