Days 114-122 - Staying put in Jinan to avoid the Golden Week rush

The first week of October is National Week in China, which results in 1.3 billion people travelling around the country and celebrating with their friends and families. As we like to adlib our way around China, we don't tend to plan in advance, but during Golden Week planning is essential - hence our plans to stay put (due to lack of any other options!).

However staying put turned out to be rather perfect. Even though we have been in Jinan for a month, we have only really had brief expeditions out and about our new city. So, this week was spent exploring and finding the best places to eat, shop and enjoy ourselves for the next 8 months.

One of our first accomplishments was finding the cheap dvd store where we stocked up with way too many dvds, which eventually resulted in a few too many hours at home in front of the tv instead of being immersed in the golden week crowds. However, at NZ$1 per dvd, can you really blame us for catching up on English movies after three months of being subjected to Chinese movies on our many bus trips across the country?!

We also made it back to the huge markets, without a student entourage, where we literally shopped till we dropped. Luckily there were street vendors selling egg and vege pancakes to sustain us while we purchased our way to a new wardrobe full of clothes and shoes. Even though we were there for almost the whole day (minus the 2 hours it took us to get there) we only really managed to wander the shoe market and a small section of the huge clothes market - at some point you have to admit you can't walk or shop anymore! Plus we still had 2 hours worth of bus rides home!

After being at school for almost a month we finally managed to walk up the hill behind us, where we got some cool views of uni, the surrounding hills, and the little suburb below us - the only catch was having to steer our way through a thin layer of smog ... During the week we made many stops along what we have nicknamed "the food street" (not very original, we know), breaking up our day of shopping and exploring with a delicious and cheap meal for lunch / dinner.

Despite numerous trips to this small bustling street, we are not even close to sampling every restaurant or food stall, so we foresee many future trips to indulge our taste buds there. In fact, Adam has even made a friend along this street, who happens to be there every time we go, he's even invited Adam to meet his warrior friends next time we're in Xi'an. This week there were more markets and ad hoc stalls downtown that we had to battle our way through on each excursion. Add to this the droves of people who cluster together - at some points it feels like the whole group is moving you, instead of yourself leading your own way. On one occasion, Adam knew where he wanted to go and what he wanted to buy (running shoes) but found himself frustrated when the sales lady paid him no attention because she could made multiple sales to the Chinese people around her, instead of dealing with the single laowai who would just take up time! Even more frustrating was the fact that her store was only full of people coming to see what the foreigners were buying (well, that's what it felt like to us)! After filling ourselves up along the food street, we returned to her shop and seeing it empty we scurried in, made the purchase and made a break for home! With running shoes now in hand, it wasn't long before Adam had them strapped to his feet and he was on his way bounding along the mountain tracks behind campus.

Sticking to the food and beverage theme of our holiday, on Wednesday we treated ourselves to a scrumptious Indian dinner with Dovid at the Jasmine Restaurant, a place we also foresee ourselves visiting a fair few times during our time in Jinan. After our dinner we made our way along to the Muslim Quarter where the foreign teachers meet at Wei Weis to begin the weekly ritual of drinking the place dry!

One of our favourite days during our week off was spent just wandering through downtown and adlibing our way along the riverside. The great thing about the rivers in Jinan is that they are fed by the numerous springs (about 70 in total), which means they are almost crystal clear - this is practically unknown in China outside of rural villages! As dusk fell we ventured up a war monument called Liberty Building (the only remaining piece of the old city wall) that graces the riverside, which provided spectacular views of the river and city below - it also provided Adam with something to climb. As the week wore on it became colder and colder, and many days were fogged out with pollution and drizzle, which acted as further impetus to stay at home in front of the tv! However, on the odd occasion when it was clear we made a mad dash in the name of exploration. On one such occasion we found ourselves surrounded by the trees small lakes at Jinan's botanical gardens. Here we sat reading our English newspapers (the first time we had managed to located some here) and eating the baked kumara we had purchased from the street vendor along the way.
It's a nice feeling finally getting to know our city - where the buses start and stop, and where the major attractions in Jinan are. So when we decided to go to Da Ming Hu (Daming Lake), it was a stress free trip there. The lake itself was pretty and we spent a good few hours exploring the pleasant surroundings - we even saw people relaxing on the grass, with no signs forbidding it in sight, this is a very unusual occurrence!! Put a big bell in front of Adam and you know what will happen ...We enjoyed a fried egg delicacy, where mini eggs from unknown hosts are fried on a skewer and covered in spices. Mmmm, mmmm. At the lake we also had our first experience of random Chinese people asking to have a photo taken with us, instead of trying to look subtle and taking them of us from a distance!

During the week we explored the mountains around our campus, where we get great views of campus and the surrounding suburbs - well, when the pollution doesn't block the view! Our first walk led us to the top of cliff behind campus, where we ambled amongst the multicoloured foliage, and stumbled or way along unsteady, rocky paths. On our next trip we began by walking along relatively clear paths that soon disappeared and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a cemetery - if this wasn't freaky enough, even more strange were the massive piles of dirt, which made us question whether graves were actually dug?! Despite the questionable site of our hike, we were rewarded with an informative view of the city - on one side of the mountains are factories who are barely visible below the pollution that bellow out from them, on the other are complete neighbourhoods that have been demolished down to nothing but piles of bricks to make room for new subdivisions. Around the corner, we watched the quarry below us in action, as diggers and bulldozers bashed down the mountains in order to provide land for the masses. Adlibing Jinan to see what we can find.