Days 158-164 - Into the hidden areas of Jinan.

The beginning of the week was a typical beginning – and consisted of nothing but teaching. On Wednesday Adam and some of the other foreign teachers made their way to Wei Wei’s via an alternative route that led them on a 20 minute meander through a dark and damp area of Jinan. The area had a ‘real’ feeling to it – as we wandered along we could see the locals tending to their daily chores. It felt like we had been taken back in time because they were doing things the way that we imagined they would have been done 100 years ago. In a flash we turned a corner and were thrust back into the reality of the city that is under constant renovation – it seemed like the area we walked through was completely untouched (well, for now anyway).

After some beers at Wei Wei’s we had an impromptu Chinese lesson from Wei Wei’s wife and as they closed up Matt and Adam headed to a nearby bbq kebab stand to indulge in some local meaty treats. Attempting to take a taxi home (normal an easy task with Dovid or Liv directing the taxi driver home), we were soon lost as the driver couldn’t understand our directions. However, in the end our minimal Chinese skills did deliver us home and only cost us an extra 5 kuai.

On Thursday we headed out into what appeared to be a relatively sunny day – oh how a warm apartment can be deceiving! By the time we made it to town we were freezing, so we hurried into a local restaurant for a warming lunch. Not wanting to stay out without our jackets for long, we zipped into the fruit and vege markets for supplies. The markets had fresh and cheap produce that was better in quality than at the supermarket – so we will come here from now on to get our fresh food. We also managed to get some of our things fixed for a couple of dollars by the lady sitting on the corner - very convenient if you ask us! On Saturday Adam and Matt went to Da Fo Tou Shan (Big Buddha Head Mountain) in town while Liv had her first Chinese lesson at home. As part of the reason for coming to China was so Liv could polish her Chinese skills, she figured that she should invest in some lessons – and even after one lesson she can see that one-on-one tutoring will help a lot!

The weekend bus traffic was phenomenal – four sardine tin full buses went by before Matt and Adam decided to catch another bus that went halfway to the mountain, and then walk the rest of the way. Wandering up the mountain we came across Bruce, who happens to be a PE teacher at Shandong University. Bruce then took us to a temple on the mountain that is older than Jinan itself, which had huge golden Buddhas carved into the rock face, with springs at its feet. Following Guide Bruce’s lead we climbed our way through the temple caves while listening to his narrative about the mountain, the buildings that have been destroyed and the places where ancient kung fu was practised.

At a junction we parted ways with Bruce and headed on our own path that led us in a loop over four peaks that make up this particular mountain. The aim of this was to find some friends who were practising kung fu on the mountain somewhere, but they were nowhere to be found so we made fun for ourselves. The highlight came as we were wandering through a forest that suddenly opened up into a flat clearing where in the trees surrounding the clearing there were a number of pieces of exercise equipment. The equipment was made from the trees themselves, and showed their age as they were rubbed smooth over the many years of use – so we’re sure whoever made them won’t mind that we had a wee training play ourselves! After a slow start to the day on Sunday, we eventually headed out into the cold for a walk into the hidden hills and suburbs around our home. After a brief walk down the highway we turned into a small township where the dirt roads seem more like alleyways made up of small concrete houses. As we walked almost person we came across greeted us with a smile and returned each “ni hao” we offered. Even though it only took us 20 minutes to walk to, this area of Jinan is like the China we had expected to see and in is complete to the sprawling, sky-scraper filled city in downtown Jinan. As we continued our exploration we found ourselves walking past dry, barren fields that have been for the year harvested and are now awaiting next season. The simple way of getting rid of old dried up weeds is to burn them – although this tactic is employed worldwide, the fact that the fire is burning is in the middle of a vast and parched area with no one watching over it, would be enough to scare the daylights out of any rural fire fighter!

We ended up wandering up past a lone woman picking cotton in a field, and she appeared as intrigued by us like we were of the cotton – as neither of us had ever seen cotton plants before. Soon, as we walked up a nearby hill, we were accompanied by an old man who chatted away to us often saying “you don’t understand me, and I don’t understand you”, along with a chuckle each time!

Once we made it to the top of the hill we were rewarded with 360 degree views of the city and its skyscrapers, the small towns like we had just visited, the larger suburbs and their pollution making factories, and the hills that were slowly being dug away to make room for the soon to be towns. The only negative aspect of the day occurred on our journey home when a dog attacked us! As we are both very used to dogs, we just stood quietly together while it ran up to us barking, but even though we didn’t think we were being threatening, as a warning it still decided to bite Liv on her ankle. Following Doctor Adam’s advice, when we got home Liv washed her ankle continuously for 5 minutes (seriously, she was being timed) and applied alcohol and antibiotic cream! Adam has warned Liv to look out for symptoms such as erratic, violent behaviour, and foaming at the mouth.

Adlibing the real Jinan that’s hidden away.

Days 153-157 - The Wally and Trinket tour recovery

The Wally and Trinket tour had obviously worn us out, as for the 5 days following their departure we literally did nothing but teach, sleep, feed our Grey’s addiction (our guests had restricted our viewing …), and eat. Only once did we venture out – and this was only for the necessity of buying food so that we could continue eating! In our defence, Adam was recovering from the terrible cold that Ross had brought with him, and Liv just felt like being lazy.

Adlibing it at home.

Days 147-152 - Wally and Trinket do Shandong

Thursday was spent in anticipation - we spent the day like children the night before Christmas waiting for Father Christmas to arrive! All the excitement provided the energy required to madly clean and prepare the apartment and ourselves for the week ahead, as well as planning the upcoming adventures! When the time finally came, we headed off to the airport much too early, catching a wickedly colourful sunset on the way (the beginning of a recurring theme of the week), and spent the next hour and a half eagerly waiting at the arrivals gate.

When Dad and Murray finally walked out the gate we hopped into a taxi and headed to our luxurious apartment - though slightly less so than their usual 5-star accommodation they've been staying at. After a brief argument with the taxi driver who was trying to charge us almost double what it had cost us to get to the airport, we settled in for the first of many beers of the week, before shooting off down the road for dinner and stories!

Our wander home led us via the local store to pick up beer and breakfast supplies (as we had just been informed that the travellers have a habit of dining on Jack Daniels and Coke for brekky)! Relaxing over a few more beers, we looked at photos to bring the stories to life and discussed possible adventures for the week. Eventually we crashed out for the night, leaving the rest of the planning for the morning.... well, leaving all of the plans for the morning!

After waking to the smell of Jack Daniels for breakfast the responsible Adlibers decided to force some muesli into our guests - little did they know that this would provide vital energy in about 6 hours time...

The Adlibing mission for their stay was to take on Shandong's Holy Mountain, Tai Shan, so without too much further ado we headed towards the long distance bus station for our bus to the town of Tai'an. The bus station is conveniently located across from the train station, where the original Adlibers managed to break the chain of 5-star accommodation and travel and book Ross and Murray on an overnight hard sleeper train to Shanghai next week! With that task done we were soon driving along the way to Tai'an.

After a quick lunch and baked kumara stop (couldn't let Dad go home without trying a baked kumara from the street vendors), we jumped into a taxi and soon found ourselves staring up at the mountain we would spend the next few hours of our lives climbing. Tai Shan is 1,545m above sea-level and the trail from base to summit is 7.5km - walking this trail involves walking up the 6,660 steps, which we can tell you is just as much fun as it sounds ...

However we were in no rush to make it to the top as we had planned our trip to climb partly during the day for the scenery (starting at 3.30pm), and partly during the evening for the lights of the enchanting city below. Our walking pace lessened as Murray stopped to look at and buy trinkets (providing an understanding as to why he has been nicknamed 'Trinket' by dad). On one such trinket stop, we noticed the numerous birds in cages around us, and figured that the reason they were there was to provide lovely bird sounds around the eating and shopping areas - what this meant is that we heard little from birds up the mountain.

As we continued to scale Tai Shan's odd and annoying shaped steps (especially for those of us with giant feet) we passed temples, stores, numerous Tai Shan Pancake sellers, and of course the ever-present people wanting to take your photo and be paid for it.

On our way up it seemed like we were the only people stupid enough to be climbing the mountain at this hour, as hordes of people were making the much easier-looking descent. We would find out much later that most people catch a bus half way up the mountain and walk the rest (or catch the cable-car) - but us hardy kiwis were having none of that, we wanted to go from base to summit and back again all by the power of foot! Walking from the bottom meant we got to pass through the "First Gate of Heaven" (where Confucius began his climb), and we continued to mark our progress as we passed under the "Midway Gate to Heaven", and as we neared the summit the "South Gate to Heaven". We guess this heaven place is pretty cool, as there are so many gates to it.

At the half-way point, as night fell, the temperature dropped dramatically and we began our layering of the many clothes we brought. Nightfall actually brought with it a blessing, as we couldn't see the steepness of the numerous flights of stairs to come! On one of our many photo stops, it was brought to our attention just how high we had climbed when we could see the entire city light up like it was a reflection of the starry night above. As we stared at the northern hemisphere's night display Liv's eye caught a flash of light as a shooting star made its way across the sky - this left Liv over the moon with excitement.

Fast-forwarding about 2,000 steps, at 8pm we found ourselves at the restaurant / hotel zone about half an hour from the top. It was here in the absolutely freezing cold (-2 degrees) that we decided we'd spend the night in a hotel, instead of following our original plan of sleeping in our sleeping bags underneath the stars! After a hot meal, we retired to our room where we all set about dethawing in order to get some sleep before waking up at 4am to catch the sunrise. Our students claim that Tai Shan sees about 4-5 spectacular sunrises a month, with the rest being clouded over, so we had our fingers crossed that we would see one of them.

We arrived at the summit with plenty of time in the morning and we spent the next two hours freezing our little kiwi butts off, which was all worthwhile as we watch the phenomenal array of colours slowly paint the sky as the fireball that is the sun crept its way up from behind the distant mountains and burst through the thin layer of clouds.

The scene was almost out of the world: at the very base lakes dotted the countryside, mountains grew in every direction slowly shedding their mist blankets as the sun rose, and all around us hundreds of people waited and chatted in anticipation. We were really glad to have Murray and his fantastic camera sitting beside us clicking away - hey, and it meant we could keep our hands in our pockets a little longer, avoiding the blueness his fingers were suffering
After spending the last 12+ hours absorbed in the attempt to catch a famous Tai Shan sunrise, it was hard to tear ourselves away and begin the descent - back down all of those 6,660 steps! In order to break up the monotonous thumping down the mountain, we stopped to take photos (not only were we blessed with a beautiful sunrise but the warming sun also decided to follow us around as it made its way through the clear blue sky), eat food (had to have another famous Tai Shan Pancake), and drink beer (can't leave without having a Tai Shan beer to celebrate). Trinket also entertained the rest of the mountain-goers, especially the ladies, while Dad seemed to take on the role of a professional photographer by offering to take photos of couples.

As we struggled on the way down, and reminisced on the painful upward journey, we were stunned to watch old men carry incredibly heavy loads on their shoulders - some of the loads would have been close to 60kgs (according to Trinket). There's a saying that if you climb Tai Shan, you'll live to be 100 years old - we'll let you know how that goes!

The desire to finally arrive back at the bottom was strong, and soon enough we were back at the bus station waiting in the VIP room (yes, we are very important - or maybe they just saw they crippled old men accompanying us who needed comfy chairs ..) for our bus back to Jinan. In typical Ross fashion, Ross spread his legs at the back of the bus and slept through the 2 hour journey home, while the rest of us sweltered in the heat.

Bus-hopping our way back to the city centre we made visit number one to the food street where we dined on a mussel dish Adam's being waiting weeks to talk to someone about (Liv doesn't really help in this respect!), as well as other Chinese delicacies.

Though our bodies were well fueled after lunch, our mind was lagging, so we took a relaxing stroll to show off Jinan's river and the springs that feed it, before zigzagging our way through the backstreets to our bus home. Too tried to move, we had a home-cooked dinner - Liv's contribution to dinner was a simple broccoli and mushroom dish, while Adam fried everyone's taste buds with an explosion of chili, garlic and ginger flavoured lotus-root! And while we had the good intentions of planning the next day, the evening was spent gazing at our amazing photo collection and drinking Jack, and ultimately resulted in us zonking out, plan less, once again.

Giving our legs, bodies, and minds a rest we spent the majority of Sunday morning relaxing at home. Eventually we convinced our dying calves that some walking might actually do them good, so we headed for town on the good ol' 116 bus! Our first stop for the day was at the computer markets - and what was meant to be a brief zip-in and zap-out purchase of memory sticks to send photos home, turned into a marathon electronic binge. An hour and a half later Ross walked out with 2 webcams, Trinket with 2 MP3 players and a memory stick to add to his trinket collection, and us with the original purchase order of memory sticks!

The next task for the day was to fix Ross's camera - it was at this point that Ross's Where's Wally act (hence his nickname) began. Ross has the tendency to send people in one direction, disappear on his own agenda, and then reappear as if nothing has happened - something that the Dentons are used to, and Murray had to adapt to quickly! At one point, not only had Wally disappeared from sight, but Adam had disappeared in the opposite direction - like father like son!! After losing and finding Wally several times we finally made it to the camera shop, and with that errand out of the way we ventured to the food street to fill our tummies for the afternoon of shopping that lay ahead (and stopping had nothing to do with our screaming calves!).

The rest of the afternoon / evening was spent wandering the 'trendy market street' (yes, yes, we know we're very original with our labels), and at the end of a long shopping haul Trinket was overflowing with trinkets and even Wally had a bag full. When we finally made it home, the men headed down the road for dinner which consisted of a series of 'yi ge zhe ge' dishes and of course beer.

As the original Adlibers had to spend Monday at school, Sunday night was spent actually planning bus routes and possible destinations so that Wally and Trinket could be unleashed in Jinan, alone!

While Liv and Adam slaved away at school, they assumed that Wally and Trinket were making their way to Red Leaves Valley as planned. However, when we returned to our apartment at lunch time to find our directions left on the table, we weren’t so sure. Later that night when we finished work, we found open beers and a mountain of trinkets waiting for us at home – and it didn’t take long to figure out that Trinket had led Wally back to the markets!

Exhausted after a day of shopping and teaching, Monday night was fairly relaxed. We went into town to a favourite Indian restaurant of ours, where we all enjoyed a great meal and beers. Afterwards Adam had the pleasure of introducing Dad to Wei Wei himself – unfortunately we were all too exhausted to join Wei Wei in his drunken happiness, and instead opted for home and sleep!

We let the old men sleep in for their last day in Jinan, before taking them out to experience a few of the things that Jinan is famous for. First, we headed for a fill up along the food street where the meat-eaters enjoyed a wonderful spicy squid dish recommended to Adam by the chef – usually they try to tempt you with the most expensive dish on the menu, but our hosts were obviously just recommending the most delicious thing available. After informing the chef of how “hao chi” (delicious) the meal was we were all soon being asked to pose for group photos with the chef and our waitress!

Adam will be making repeat trips to visit for some more squid!

Feeling satisfied we headed to Baotuquan - the most famous spring in Jinan. Here we spent almost 3 hours ambling through the gardens the surround the springs. Even though there were no trinkets available for a certain member of our group to buy, Wally certainly did his thing – a number of times! As we took in the surrounds of the spring we came across things you expect in a Chinese garden such as big brass bells, pagodas, old people playing traditional Chinese instruments together, and as always normal Chinese families having a good time together (including the bare-bottomed baby)! Of interest (and some slight concern) here was one particular spring that was home to a couple of seals – who spend their day swimming around in circles after each other. They seem happy enough, but it was very weird seeing seals in the middle of a city like Jinan.
The water here was so clean that Adam and Wally even had a few gulps from the fountain, after which they realised they were a little bit thirsty – and where better to enjoy a Baotu Spring Beer than at the Baotu Spring itself! After leaving the Spring, we walked through the City Square on our way to our regular food spot to enjoy once last meal with family and friends, before we would be cast back into a sea of unfamiliar faces and language. Anxious not to miss the train to Shanghai we all headed to the train station for our final few hours together – which was spent in a familiar way for the adlibers: hanging out at the railway station. This was nice because we could share our train knowledge, and make sure Murray and Dad actually left! Just kidding …

Much too soon, the two adlibers were back on their own, and made a somber trip back to the empty apartment. It was so great to have a touch of home in a world that for the majority of the time is so unknown.

Even though Ross has moved on and left the adlibers alone on their adventure once again, it is a great feeling to know that we will always have the memories of our time together. Having dad as an honorary member of the adlibing crew has been an absolute joy that I will cherish forever.

Oh, and a special thanks goes out to all those involved in “Task Chocolate”!

Wally and Trinket do it adlib-style.