Photos taken by Avellina Colacurcio (Wellesley College), Student Correspondent for CET Shanghai, Summer 2026
There are a couple of reasons why one would wake up at three in the morning:
A) 8am flight
B) Cortisol spike
C) To climb a mountain to an ancient Chinese site of imperial sacrifice
To understand why we were waking up at three AM, we need to rewind a couple hours. During my most recent weekend at CET Shanghai, I traveled with seven other students to Taishan, a mountain three and a half hours away from Shanghai by 高铁 (high-speed train).
Our first night we stayed at the foot of the mountain in a small hotel, which was refreshingly cheap compared to US prices! We got to the hotel around 9pm, after a thirty minute Didi (Chinese uber) from the Tai’an train station. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, where I tried a new juice that I originally thought was tomato, but turned out to be some kind of red berry juice. The juice was pretty good, although I couldn’t quite place the specific flavor of berry that I was drinking.
The next morning, the plan was to wake up at eight and begin climbing Taishan. However, one of the best parts about traveling as an adult is that you can choose to opt out of any activity whenever you don’t feel like it. So, instead of walking up 6,700 steps in 90 degree weather, two other girls and I decided to go to a café and then take a bus to a cable car, which would deliver us to the top of Taishan in a quarter of the time that it would take to hike to the top. Back in Washington, I love the occasional hike, but it was nice to take the time to relax and admire the mountain from a bird’s eye view.
When we got to the top of the mountain, the first thing I noticed was the stark difference in temperature. After I decided to study abroad in China, I had a couple people warn me about the hot and humid weather that is common outside of Seattle. Shanghai weather has definitely lived up to the warnings I was given. However, when I stepped off the cable car I was greeted with a crisp 70 degree breeze.
As we made our way to our mountaintop hotel, we soon realized that we were the only 外国人 (foreigners) on the mountain, so many people stared at us and sometimes would ask for photos. Since China is almost entirely ethnically homogenous, Americans are very different and interesting to many locals, especially in more rural areas where less foreigners travel.
After checking into our hotel, we beelined for the dumpling place three minutes away. We ordered in Mandarin and I got a beef bao and also an orange juice. After snacking, we walked to the peak of the mountain to watch the sunset, which was very beautiful. We then ate dinner at the hotel restaurant.
In China, meals are designed to be family style, so everyone orders a bunch of dishes to share. This way, at every meal I get to try a new dish that I probably wouldn’t have ordered had I only ordered one dish for myself! We then went and got ice cream at a chain restaurant, Mixue. There were actually a lot of options for food and shopping, despite being on top of an ancient mountain. Then we set our alarms for three AM and went to sleep.
After hitting snooze on four alarms, we all met up at 3:50 and walked to the same peak where we watched the sunset the night before. As our de facto tour guide classmate enthusiastically explained, we were standing on the same rocks that ancient Chinese nobility had made sacrifices on thousands of years ago. Despite thinking that our sunrise spot was niche, we were quickly joined by about one hundred other travelers who were equally anxious to see the incredible sunrise.
At 5:30, the sun began to rise slowly and we watched the clouds around us transition from a stormy blue to a pleasant white. After the sun had risen completely, we walked back to our hotel and slept until check out at twelve. At twelve, we made our way down the mountain, by bus and cable car of course, and later took the high speed rail back to campus, where our dorms and roommates were waiting for us.
On the Didi back to Donghua University, I reflected on the weekend. For me, I think the best part was getting a break from city life and slowing down a bit. Because of China’s extensive transportation system, it’s extremely convenient to travel. This upcoming weekend, the same group of students is planning to travel to islands nearby Shanghai. I’m looking forward to exploring more of China on the final weekends I have here, and I’ll keep you posted! 再见！