An unforgettable day in Shandong Province! After breakfast we left to go hiking the Yunmen Mountain. On our way there we had the opportunity to see the countryside, farms and of course some nature. After being in Beijing for a couple of days this was very well appreciated. The weather was perfect and we started hiking at about 10 am. There we were, the Yunmen Mountain. Its highest peak is 421m high. There are 272 statues of Tang dynasty and inscriptions of many famous persons of past dynasties at the mountain. Among them there is the biggest "longevity" symbol (7.5m high and 3.5m wide). Only the word that means, "inch" under "longevity" has a height of 2.3m so there is an old saying that "a man is not higher than 1 inch". All the explorers made it to the top and we were delighted by the unique view that we had up there. We took a lot of pictures trying to capture the view and the good time that we spent at the top of the mountain. Seeing a part of China where nature is well preserved was very interesting and gratifying. I enjoyed the way back from the hill because it was down hill of course. After this tiring but great experience we went to visit a farm of scorpions. After having deep fried scorpions the night before for dinner I don't really know how happy we were to see the funny bugs. It was definitely an experience. Then we went to visit a local industry. It was a factory for sculptures and statues. They had all kinds and sizes. Some information for last year's China Explorers: your pictures were honored on the wall of the meeting room. The owner gave us a tour, he is actually the artist and designer of the statues. He was very nice and gave us all gifts. I was lucky enough to get a sculpture of Mount Rushmore. Everyone else got Chinese sculptures. After all of this we went for Chinese food and headed back to the hotel. We had the rest of the afternoon for sight seeing in the city and spent sometime with the locals. After dinner we went to the train station and started our trip to Nanjing.
Sights Pictrue 
Comment
