Today I got back from our school’s annual Spring Trip for 7th grade.  This time of year every grade higher than 4th grade goes on a Spring trip to somewhere in China from 3 to 9 days!  So 7th grade wen to the NanJing/ShanDong province.  I left on Saturday and came back on Friday, today.  Well, the 2nd day of our trip we were supposed to scale half of the 6,000 steps leading to the top of TaiShan!  TaiShan is the famous mountain in that province for the so called holy water that flows down the mountain.  I can tell you one thing, next time I go there you won’t see me climbing those stairs, you’ll find me in the tram!!!  It was the hardest hikes I have EVER done (and I’m not exaggerating!)  Though all thew stairs where even and a reasonable size the sun beat down on me and though there was a slight breeze it couldn’t fight the heat!!!  I mean, 3,000 steps! Come on, you can’t say that’s not hard!!!  The truly sad thing was that there were men that carried heavy loads on their shoulders up ALL 6,000 steps so that the shops at the top of TaiShan can have merchandise; they do it twice a day for only 3.50$ a round trip!!!!!  It’s ridiculous!!!  Any way we also saw MANY very old men and women that walked up all 6,000 steps because Chinese people believe that if you climb all 6,000 steps and watch the sun set that you’ll live to be 100 years old.  Well I was huffing an puffin the whole way up!  (I really respect the older teachers that came and climbed it with us). I was the first girl to reach the top of that mountain!  I made it in 1 hour and 2 minutes!  I am VERY proud of myself for that!  I believe that I have quite a bit of endurance, but the problem is that I don’t know when to stop!  Because when I reached the top (and if you asked the teacher who was at the top when I got there he would verify it) that my face was as red as a cherry and was blotchy white as you can see in the picture below!  Well you can read this and say it’s all very well, but as my teacher said,  NONE of you will ever know what I mean until you do it yourself!The man who is bringing loads up the mountain.

The entrance to TaiShan.

After the hike.

A man walking up the road to the stairs so that he can get so ‘holy’ water from a river that flows down the mountain.