Nanjing to Ta’ain

Our early a.m. start for the 5:35 train to Ta’ain. Since we were boarding a train in progress, we had no idea what to expect when we arrived at the sleeper compartment. The conductor made a quick switch in our seats (since there was already someone in our assigned seats). We woke the two people in our compartment up, but only briefly. The Asian sleep gene kicked in and they were out again within minutes. We actually got a bit of sleep and then tried to tiptoe around the compartment as the woman in the lower berth slept and slept. At about 9:00, we were beginning to wonder if she was dead. She finally got up and she was the perfect compartment mate- completely quiet and unassuming. She spent most of the day sleeping.

When we got to Ta’ain and departed from the train station, we were surrounded by touts trying to get sell us their taxi and hotels services. People were everywhere and you got a sense of a town not benefiting from the economic boom of China. We checked into our hotel and went to CITS (Completely Inept Travel Service). We rousted a guy from his TV program and tried to get some answers from him about guides and trains. It was painful. The Chinese anticipatory gene is completely absent. You have to think for them. We finally got information about the train to Qingdao and got his commitment to go to the train station to buy two tickets and at 4:00, as promised, he arrived with the tickets in hand.

We headed for a leisurely walk through town. We happened on the Dai Temple, a pilgrimage spot on the road to Tai Shan and site of huge sacrifices to the god of Tai Shan. It was a huge area enclosed by high walls. It was quite impressive.

We watched the tourists playing a game of luck- they are blindfolded (or close their eyes) and go around a rock 3 times then try to find their way to a cypress tree, 20 steps away.
We wandered our way to a Peking Duck restaurant recommended in LP. The only way to find the place was by finding the plaster duck by the door.

The menu was all in Chinese, but they knew we were looking for the 50-yuan duck (the LP suggestion). For about $6, we had beers and an entire duck served to us. We grabbed a motorcycle cab back to the hotel.