Days 200-204 - Christmas in Jinan!!!

On Monday night, to get ourselves in the festive mood we headed off to Dave's place in town for a Christmas Eve Party, where we chilled the night away in great company before heading home for some sleep. Even though it seems like the hours we sleep are never enough, it was particularly so when we woke on Christmas day at 4.30am in order to catch the Porter and Denton Christmas morning celebrations!

Talking with our families made the day actually feel like Christmas, and as Christmas is always such a family affair it meant the world to us to be able to spend a small part of the day chatting with and seeing the people we love the most.

Let's such say trying to listen and grade hours of speeches was more than a struggle for the old eyelids (yes, we had to work on Christmas day!), but we made it through the day and soon we were walking through the front door of Leads Italian Restaurant for our Christmas splurge dinner with Matt and Dovid. Dining on our first western meal since arriving in Jinan we savoured every mouthful - we even got a touch of home with anchor butter and Adam dining on a (supposedly) NZ T-Bone steak for dinner, which while yummy was nothing like the steak at home! The lively restaurant boss kept on popping in to make sure the staff were treating his 'friends' well, which was good for us as we got free Christmas gifts in the form of a key chain and free dessert! We say he was 'popping in' because we were seated in a private room for the night - very flash if you ask us!!

Back home Liv conquered the difficult level of spider solitaire for the first time, while Adam joined the boys downstairs for a few quiet gins.

The rest of the week was spent finishing and marking exams, finding out that we finish a week earlier than we thought, and subsequently making rushed plans on how to spend our New Year's weekend. In the end we have decided to visit our friends David and Gael who we meet at one of our favourite travel destinations (Dehang) about 5 months ago! We'll fill you in on the details later!

Adlibing it to the end of the semester, a week early!

Days 193-199 - Party time in Jinan!!

Wednesday this week followed a similar pattern to previous weeks with Liv staying home to catch up on girly movies and Adam going into town for Foreigners' night - the difference this week was that it was Gazza's 26th birthday and everyone planned to drink the night away good ol' English style! Wei Wei was on great form to the point we he gave up carting single beers over to the table and just lumped full crates instead! The party continuously extended and more and more tables were acquired - Wei Wei even moved a table of Chinese patrons to another corner to give his best customers more room - though before the night was over the whole restaurant was Gen Bei-ing with us!

A mass taxi convoy brought us to the 7th Street Bar where beer goggled Laowai were surprised to find girls dancing on poles and in cages! Needless to say some of the girl foreigners departed early while the rest of us continued the partying with a full bottle of Jack Daniels on the table, a couple of bottles of coke and a great dj busting out tunes that led us to the dancefloor between shots! Adam didn't really move much the next day ...

Although his hibernation made for excellent Prison Break watching, which we spent the entire day on Thursday doing!

On Friday we were invited to the annual General Study Programme "Party" - and while it is called a party it was actually a lively Christmas performance made up of lots of different skits, dances, songs and games - one of which involved Adam getting up on stage and joining in the fun! This particular game involved having balloons tied to your legs and trying to stomp other teams' balloons! All in all the night was pretty fun as we got to see our students in a different light: one of laughter and fun, instead of groans at working out of the required textbook!

After Chinese lessons and training on Saturday, on Sunday we ventured into town for some shopping and Adam picked up the 2nd part of his 80s tracksuit Christmas present to himself! As a break from shopping Liv led the way into the Aili Bakery and we indulged in some decadent cakes - what a great way to finish the week!

Adlibing the Jinan nightlife.

Days 186 - 192 - Getting into the Christmas spirit

The first day of another one of our typical teaching week, brought a bit of cheer with it, as we found a discarded christmas tree in the teachers' office - left behind by another foreign teacher from last year. With this set up we had new found enthusiasm for decorating, so after stocking up on our fruit and veges in town, we set about trying to find some decorations! Although nothing like the trees we're used to back home (huge and 'very' decorated) it does us just fine!!

On Thursday our first Christmas present (from us to us) arrived - our Vietnam Guide!!! We have now well and truly started planning our trip - ony 3 more weeks to go! Our plans are continuously changing especially as we read more about the enticing adlibing opportunities that await us in Vietnam. We had originally planned to spend 3 weeks in Vietnam and 3 weeks in Laos, but it's currently looking like we'll spend a week in Hainan (China's most Southern province), before ferrying across and spending around a month in Vietnam.

On Saturday Adam once again made his trek to Do Fo Tou Shan to train with the boys, one of which invited the rest of the training crew back to his apartment to dine on his home-cooked Chinese cuisine. Adam also got the first half of his addidas tracksuit (Adam's christmas present to himself), but he's holding off on pictures until his 80s outfit is complete!

On Sunday Liv had her Chinese lesson and we both hung around sorting out school and travel stuff for the rest of the day. We also started our new tv series - finally catching onto the Prison Break craze: we're (almost) hooked already!

Adlibing life as usual.

Days 179-185 – Just adlibing along to a fiery finish

It’s becoming more and more obvious that we are settling somewhat into a routine as we have less and less to report on each week! Mainly due to Adam feeling sick for the first half of the week, nothing much happened in the adlibing camp until Thursday when we went shopping – we both came home smiling: Liv with a new handbag and top and Adam because he finally got us both set up with some new trekking shoes.

On Saturday it was time for Liv’s personal Chinese lesson and Adam’s training session up the mountain with 2 other foreigners Dave and Brad. Together they practice a type of Chinese yoga and martial arts, the name of which Adam still struggles to remember.

Sunday was a huge day for the Adlibers who split off in different directions for the day. Adam went paintballing with Matt and 4 of his students. They were split into two teams, Adam’s team was the Army crew and Matt’s team the NYPD crew. All uniforms were original surplus USA uniforms and soon we were all kitted up and in the fighting zone with our M-16s! After two hours of warfare, paintball shells flying left, right and centre, and enough bruises to last the rest of the week, we headed off for lunch. Our students wanted us to experience Chinese kebabs and ended up taking us to a restaurant directly next to our Wednesday Local Joint “Wei Weis” – but with Wei Wei’s wife outside waving at us, we convinced our students to take us there instead. Soon we were dining on such delicacies as bone marrow and heart arteries, as well as classics like beef and shrimp. We even convinced our very anti-drinking students to gan bei (empty cup) some pijiu (beer) with us!
Adam’s final mission for the day was to conquer the software market and with his Chinese speaking students it went much smoother than the last time we attempted it solo. In fact it went so successfully that Adam came home bearing a special gift for Liv (a totally cool mp3 player) and some electronic goodies for both of us!

While Adam was out for the day, Liv spent the morning snuggled up in bed reading magazines before heading out for an exploratory wander along the streets outside our campus. When an almost empty bus came along, it was too tempting to ignore, so Liv hopped on with the intention of getting off at a street that caught her eye. Unfortunately Liv was so engrossed with reading her book that before she knew it the bus was at the final stop. After a meander around the shops, she hopped right back on the bus and headed home. To top off a great day (what more could a girl ask for than girly mags and shopping) she had a chat on skype with big sis Dee Dee!

Adlibing Jinan on different paths.

Days 172-178 – The teachers become the students

After the travels at the weekend we enjoyed spending this week relaxing. It was nice to actually come home after a trip rather than mounting the heavy packs and preparing for the next destination – it definitely makes life easier having a home base here in Jinan. Adding to the desire to relax was the fact that Liv wasn’t feeling to crash hot, and so we just blobbed. Apart from shopping during the week for the necessities of life (food) we did nothing until the weekend.

On Saturday while Liv increased her Chinese skills, Adam ventured out for his first training session up Da Fo Tou, which was literally a painful reminder of Adam’s poor physical condition which he blames solely on cheap Chinese beer!

After Liv’s lesson and Adam’s training we met up in town with some of our students, which turned into an effort, to say the least. They told us they wanted to join us in order to practice their English, but because there were four of them they just ended up talking Chinese to each other. The positive aspect of the outing with our students was that Liv was shown where the Foreign Languages Bookstore is and managed to get herself of couple of classics to read, after the Denton book stash wears down. After a mad dash into the Christmas-crazed RT Mart for dumpling supplies, we darted off home to relax the rest of the weekend away. Oh, but not before Adam shaved his beard in preparation for the Movember mo’ show! Adlibing ourselves into a routine?!.

Days 165-171- Off to the beach to drink beer

Days 165-169 were spent in pure anticipation of returning to the adlibing tour, which we undertook on days 170-171! On Friday night after rushing through our afternoon classes, we grabbed our day bags (oh what a blessing to be free of our packs) and made haste for the fast train to Qingdao.

With the train reaching speeds of 231km/h it wasn't long before we reached our destination: Qingdao. Once occupied by Germany, Qingdao is famous throughout China for it's beaches and the first brewery in China - the beer that comes out of the Tsingtao Brewery is sent all around China and even around the world.

After staying in a dodgy hostel on Friday night (dodgy is more of a sugar coated description for the standard of this place! - especially due to its communal shower and toilets and bedding that clearly hadn't been washed since a few guests ago), we set off on foot to walk along Qingdao's coast. Destination no.1: 2008 Olympics Sailing Village, well, we tried to see it but the guards were unaccommodating, so we had to settle for a view from the perimetre instead.

Next we used our noses to follow the salty air towards the coast, and we soon found ourselves at the May 4th Square, perched above the first of a series of beaches we would walk along. We managed to keep track of where we were because the beaches are conveniently named swimming beach 1 - swimming beach 6 (though you wouldn't catch us swimming in any of these beaches - especially in Winter)!

While Liv ate chocolate sitting on a bench overlooking the beach, Adam released his inner child (this doesn't usually take much effort) and went exploring. Down on the beach he collected pretty shells for Liv and watched the locals gathering seaweed that had been washed up during the high tide and would soon be gracing diners plates in nearby restaurants.

After a couple of hours of wandering we ventured inland, hopped on a bus and headed nowhere in particular. As luck would have it the bus drove right past the Hostelling International and stopped 100 metres down the road - and considering we had nowhere to sleep for the night, we decided to disembark and check it out. Inside we were greeted in the usual hostel manner by overly friendly, semi-English speaking staff, who were only more than happy to show us around.

With a new room and two bags less, we headed off to explore the old town and some of the German architecture that is on offer! On our way to find food, we wandered down a market street that was overflowing with an abundance of fresh fruit and veges, flopping fish fresh from the sea, butchered meat (including smiling sheep heads), and snacks galore! At lunch Adam was so specific with what he wanted to eat that the cook's wife sent him up the road to the market to buy supplies even though Adam's desired dish was not on the menu! What service! After filling up on food and Tsingtao beer (when in Rome ...), we headed down some back alleys to get a view of the city that used to be, wandering past workers 7 stories up on their bamboo scaffolding unharnessed, dilapidated buildings, the port, and eventually onto the main shopping street.

After a couple of hours of walking around we finally made it to the old St Michael's Catholic Church, which has been serving Qingdao's Catholics since 1934 (though it has been heavily renovated after its semi-destruction during the cultural revolution).

Another adlibing adventure eventually deposited us at Bathing Beach No. 6 where we hung out with hundreds of other tourists taking in the stunning ocean views as we all headed along the pier to the Hulian Pavilion. From here we could see "Little Qingdao", the Peninsula that houses a German-built lighthouse. Along the pier coral, seashells, and starfish were for sale everywhere, after being torn away from their natural habitat over the day.

After layering up with more clothes at the hostel we headed to Beer Street for the night! Here we got to see the famous 1903 Tsingtao Brewery. Beer Street was full of giant beer cans, beer bottle structures, manhole covers decorated with various beer drinking animals and of course a multitude of restaurants. There were no details left untouched, with rubbish bins in the shape of beer barrels and bottle-shaped street benches.

In the mood to quench our thirst we battled our way through the keg fortresses that line the streets outside each restaurant, and with little fuss soon had a massive jug of Tsingtao beer and an order of food on the way! A rare situation appeared when Adam had to fight with Liv over the beer - if he'd known his girlfriend was drinking he'd have ordered two jugs!

To walk the beer off we browsed through the night markets scattered around town, to the point where we needed to snack on more food, before heading home to escape the cold - the chilly sea breeze hit us close to home, reminding us a little too much of the Wellington wind!!

In the morning we spent our last few hours in Qingdao wandering through the old town where the dirt of a long existence had built up to the point that it painted the alleyways and streets with its own personal colour and fragrance. We wandered around admiring the slowly dying German architecture, we had to wonder to ourselves if we returned in 5 years how much of this natural and historical beauty would be gone. We also visited Guanhaishan Park where China's first Observatory is located, where we enjoyed a rooftop drink and took in the magnificent views over the city, with our new husky friend!

We had to accomplish one major task before we left Qingdao, outside the many restaurants and street kitchens are stacks of Tsingtao beer kegs where you can purchase beer fresh from the brewery by the bag full. Yes, you read right, they fill plastic bags full of yellow gold and weigh it - you get 500mls of beer for 1.50RMB or 25NZ cents!

After lunch it was time to head to the train station for our return trip home - it's nice to have a place to go 'home' to! The great thing about returning to your hometown is you know which bus to catch where - and since it was dinner time when we got back, we headed straight to our local haunt 'the food street'!

Although we had a brilliant weekend, the reality of teaching an 8 hour day the next day, soon put somewhat of a dampener on our good moods!

Adlibing Qingdao's beer.