Day 2 – Laoshan (崂山) & Ba Da Guan (Eight Great Passes 八大關)

No more blue sky today but the temperature remains at around 20°C+. At 08:30 we took our hired car to Laoshan and we arrived there about 40 minutes later. After we purchased the admission tickets, we needed to take the zone coach to the various main scenic spots. At the first entrance gate one’s finger print was taken and then they verify it at the subsequent entrances. It’s the first time for me in China to come across such policy. As they’d difficulty in sourcing my wife’s finger print, they used my thumb print instead for my wife and my index finger print for my own admission ticket. How strange and annoying!

At the first stop we hired (RMB50) a guide (Ms. Lin Ching 林靜) and based on her overview of the place we decided to take the mountain route and visit the Taoist temple instead of the boat ride and Buddha temple.

The second stop is The Taiping Palace (太清宫). The "White Dragon Spring" is located at the north part of Taiping Palace. There are many huge stones cross the banks, which is called “the Celestial's Bridge" and the spring water flows through the cracks of the huge stones. Coming across the bridge, you could view 20 poems related to Laoshan by famous Taoist monk, Qiu chuji (丘處機) carved on a rock. The famous ghost story teller Mr. Pu songling (蒲松齡) in Qing Dynasty (AD 1644 - 1911) based the background of his legends on this mountain for those supernatural spirits' activities. There are two very old cypresses in Sanhuang Palace, which were planted in the Han Dynasty (BC 206 - AD220). Another old rare camellia in front of the Sanhuang Palace has been lived over 700 years.

Then we proceeded to the third stop and take the gondola to the uphill trekking starting point. We just loitered around, took some photos and tried the local tea (Laoshan tea, kind of green tea) before heading down and started our homeward journey.

By the time we got back to the hotel and checked out it’s already passed 14:00. Most restaurants in the neighborhood were closed. We’d no alternative but patronized a Häagen-Dazs outlet at the Olympic Sail Centre.

We got a taxi at the hotel intending going to Ba Da Guan (Eight Great Passes, 八大關 as the eight roads there were names after the famed Passes in China though now there’re ten instead of eight), the older area of town with some surviving German and Japanese architecture. Though the taxi driver pleaded insurmountable traffic condition and dropped us off at the May Fourth Square. We managed to find another taxi to take us to Ba Da Guan. This area is one of the largest wedding photo sites in China. Everyday there’re several dozen newly wedded couples taking photos in the area. Besides loitering at some “Passes” we also visited the Flower-floor (花石楼), the place for previous German governors to fish, hunt or rest. Again we couldn’t find a taxi so we ended up taking a bus (#312?) back to the vicinity of the InterContinental. Since we’re running of time we’d noodle at the food court at the Darling Harbour (心海廣場) a shopping center next to the hotel before going to the airport at 19:00. And we’d to switch from Air China to Shandong Air due to problem with the inbound flight from Beijing.


Camera Equipment:
Camera: Nikon D3 & F6 plus Panasonic LX3
Lens: AFS 17-35/f2.8 (mostly on F6) and AFS 70-200/f2.8 (D3)
Singh-Ray Filters: i) Gold N Blue Polarizer, ii) LB Color Combo Polarizer, iii) Daryl Benson ND-3 Reverse Graduate and iv) Galen Rowell ND-3G Hard Step.
Film (for F6): 8 rolls of Kodak Ektar and 1 roll of Fujicolor – all 100 ISO

NB: Photos without metadata were taken by Nikon F6, the film camera