Day 220 - A hard day at the beach

Our day today followed a very similar pattern to yesterday: we woke, ate, went to the beach, and remained there all day, save an hour at lunch. Our highlights of the day may seem childish but we immensely enjoyed our freshly made mango icecream - we watched it turn from mango fruit, to smoothie, to an icecream heaven! We also got great pleasure from sitting on the beach sipping coconut juice from a fresh coconut and feasting on fresh strawberries to keep our sugar levels up and sustain us for a hard day at the beach! Our only decisions left for the day are: where are we going to go for dinner and whether or not we'll brave another massage! Oh, and the slightly annoying task of packing for the next step on the adlibing tour that starts tomorrow - do we really have to leave here?!

Adlibing it resort style (really just the same as yesterday!)

Day 219 - The beginnings of a few days of lazy holiday

This morning we woke up and out of habit we went to look out the window - but in contrast to our usual misty winter back home in Jinan we were greeted by sunny blue skies and the sound of waves crashing not far away! We needed little convincing to get our butts out of the hostel and to the beach! With free hostel beach mats and towels in hand we set about finding an securing a sandy spot on the beach to spend the day reading, swimming, chatting and dozing in the sun! After seeing several other beaches in China we didn't hold much hope that Sanya would be any different - but it is! Memories of the rubbish washed ashore at Macau's beaches haunted us on our 3 day journey south - but we were greeted with China's Hawaii: literally! Here men, women, and children seem to escape from the serious lives they lead and embrace the beach culture they rarely get to experience - and of course many end up looking very similar in full floral hawaiian shirts and shorts!!It is great to see people of all nationalities (the Chinese population is for once perhaps in the minority given all the Russian and Western tourists here) kicking back and having a ball.

We escaped from the extremely draining (!) life of lying on the beach by occasionally going for a refreshing swim in the stunning water. We even had to pull ourselves away for an hour or so in the search of lunch, but after filling up on seafood and tofu we quickly returned and remained until the sun set behind the mountains that surround this small piece of paradise. In the evening we went into town for a look around the markets but without wanting to increase the weight of our packs any more, we soon left in search of a meal. We ended up dining on spicy hotpot - a Chinese favourite but one we have yet to actually try in China - that we filled with numerous veges. The hotpot experience is one everyone who comes to China must experience at least once: imagine a cooker on your table and a pot fill of super spicy soup (as red as fire!) that you add the veges or meat that you have ordered into to cook just to your liking! For once Liv was having something that she didn't have everyday, so we went a little overboard on the ordering, but managed to finish of most of it! Our hostel advertises massages for 15 yuan an hour at a place in town, which was our next stop! Here Adam indulged in an hour long foot massage, while Liv's whole body got the going over!!! Adam's experience was painful to say the least, but hopefully will reduce the tension that builds up in his feet after days of walking through the adlibing tour. Liv's experience was, well, an experience: having never actually had a professional massage in her life she didn't quite know what to expect, and all the bone clicking was almost too much to bear. She had to chuckle though when the very slight Chinese girl was clambering all over her and twisting her body in not so comfortable ways. We're still considering a return trip tomorrow night - for under NZ$3 each, who can argue?!

After the effort of the day (we're kidding) we retired and slept peacefully awaiting the hard day ahead of us!

Adlibing the Sanya sunshine.

Day 218 - Heading to the sunny south!!

Our train pulled in at Haikou station around 10.45am and within 15 minutes we were on a public bus bound for Xin Gang - the ferry port where we were aiming to buy ferry tickets either to Haiphong in Vietnam or Beihai (still in China) if the ferry to Vietnam wasn't running (we had heard rumors of this but had been unable to verify!). After an hour on the bus Liv finally said out loud what both of us were thinking: "I think we've missed our stop". We spent a few minutes trying to pinpoint our current location on our tincy map and then the bus suddenly stopped and turned around. After asking the driver if the bus would be returning to the port (and getting an answer in the negative) we stood on the bus not entirely knowing what to do! Luckily a very friendly local approached and offered his help, and after a very long time conversing in Liv's limited Chinese and his limited English we finally managed to convey that we wanted to go to the travel agent to check about tickets! Being the typical friendly local he walked us to the door and bid us farewell! Here we managed to get the information that the ferry to Vietnam was no longer running and they sent us on our way to the port where we needed to buy tickets to Beihai for in a few days.

The usually easy task of buying tickets was extremely difficult here, for no particular real reason, but after about an hour we walked out with tickets in our hand. It wasn't an hour spent in lines either - rather an hour trying to figure out why we couldn't buy Monday tickets from here!! Turns out that on Monday the 14th of January the boat leaves from a different dock, but they could still sell us the tickets. This seriously took us one whole hour to sort out!

By 1.40pm we were on our way to sunny Sanya - a beach resort town on the southern tip of the island (and of course, China in general). On the bus we met a couple of other travellers, and they joined us in the typical mission to locate the hostel we were after (quite a mission considering the small alleyway it is down) - which was worth the effort: it is about a 5 minute walk to the miles of sandy beach and turquoise water from here!!

At this point, we had realised that we had been wearing the same clothes and hadn't showered in 3 days - oh the traveller's life! So after cleaning ourselves up in order to fit in with the western crowd that has immerged out of nowhere, we hit the beach for an evening stroll before dinner nearby, where Adam began his seafood extravaganza and Liv dined on her usuals. Adlibing it to the beach.

Day 217 - Third time's a charm in Guangzhou!

Our train pulled in at the station at 10.45am in a much warmer Guangzhou than the Beijing we had just left - Beijing was hovering between a chilly -5-5 degrees, while we have just arrived in the 20-25 degree range in south China. As we stood in the wonderfully chaotic lines in the train station for the next hour or so, we almost wished ourselves back to the cold. Almost. With onward tickets for tonight bound for Hainan Island, we set off in search of food - what we found was a culture shock worse than what we found when we first arrived in Asia 7 months ago. The problem is that we have become so comfortable in our life in Jinan - we know where to go to eat, sleep, shop, drink, relax and we feel like we belong because we live there. Arriving here where we have no bearings, a huge pack on our backs, and no real plans is hard - throw in millions of people who all seem to be walking in the opposite direction as you, and you've got how we felt at 12pm today. Was it this hard the first time around - we both ask ourselves?

Not to worry, we checked our bags in at the train station, hopped on the metro (that we know so well, having been to Guangzhou twice before now), found some yummy food and an internet cafe to absorb some of our free time. With Liv's limited Chinese skills she's usually the one that has to buy all the tickets, order the food and ask for directions on our frequent trips into the land of the lost - but today Liv was even more reluctant than usual to pounce on an unsuspecting local for directions to an internet cafe! After informing Liv, rather forcefully, that she "had to do it because I can't" Adam waltzed up to a Chinese guy, asked him for directions to an internet cafe (in Chinese) and walked back to Liv proclaiming "it's that way"! After we catch up on blogging and emails we'll head out to find some more food before jumping back on the metro and heading to the train station for our train to the beaches of China in Hainan province at 9.30 tonight!

Adlibing it in our home away from home away from home - well at least it seems that way!

Day 216 - The adlibing train tour continues!

Waking and getting ready quick smart we zipped off to the visa office and walked out 10 minutes later semi-stunned at the speed of the process and that nothing had gone wrong!

We grabbed our packs from the hostel and our attempt at trying to get on the next bus heading to the other train station resulted in us standing on the side of the road for the next 45 minutes - before luckily squeezing ourselves onto the next bus. If we hadn't made it on we would have had to catch a taxi, which is a total last resort on our adlibing rule list!

We made it to the train station just in time, Adam almost taking out the other passengers on the train with his huge pack! With the bags safely stowed away went set in for our 23 hour journey and waited for night when we could sleep half of the trip away (well, almost)!

Adlibing the train - again.

Day 215 - Eating and shopping our way through our last day in Beijing.

Being our last full day in Beijing and already having accomplished everything we had set out to adlib (plus feeling the residual pain and exhaustion after our mammoth effort to the Great Wall and back yesterday) we took today very easily. We slept in like any good holidayer does, until we could no longer stand the suffocating heat in our room or the incessant blaring of the same Kenny G cd we have been hearing for the past week!!

Liv attacked the computer in an attempt to uplift our photos onto the blog for the last week, but it was a good reminder to us that internet cafes often throw paddies and refuse to do what you want them to!

We eventually went out and decided to find lunch. The Lonely Planet recommended Wanfang Snack Street, which sounded great to us as we had been struggling to find the Chinese street snacks that we had become accustomed to everywhere else in China. Unfortunately what we found was not what we wanted - yes there were snacks but they were 5 times the price we pay in Jinan and elsewhere in China, and overall disappointing. We mentioned more than once that living in China has made us more picky - which was even more evident when we saw other tourists looking satisfied with their snacks. So, we set off for a cheap Chinese restaurant, and were immediately given a nice looking English menu - they were a bit shocked when we asked for a Chinese menu straight away where we could compare the difference in prices!!! One dish was 8 yuan on the Chinese menu and 24 yuan on the English!! After ordering from the Chinese menu (even trying a new vege dish!), we ate our food and went in search of the Silk Street - which is actually just one huge shopping mall that sells everything including silk!

We wandered around for a good couple of hours, but as we are setting off on a 6 week backpacking trip we don't really want the extra weight (in fact we had just sent 2kgs worth of stuff back to our home in Jinan) and most of the stuff we can get in Jinan we didn't do much shopping - our only purchase for the day was one pretty pink Burberry watch for Liv (genuine fake of course)!

We rested at home for a while before heading out in search of another cheap meal - and the bargain we got wasn't what we had planned! Adam decided that he wanted a meat dish so instead of the usual 2 vege dishes we get to share, I ordered fried noodles and Adam took a random shot at the menu! Unfortunately for him his meal was cabbage! So Liv found a dish with the word 'beef' in it and asked the waitress if it was yummy (which of course she said it was)! About 2 minutes later Adam's dish come out and he started attacking it with his chopsticks. About 10 minutes later another meat dish was placed before us - uh, hang on a minute! We knew we had only ordered 3 dishes in total! In the end they realised that the first meat meal they brought to Adam was not meant for us, but Adam had already eaten half of it!!! So they rushed that back to the kitchen (we suspect straight back into the wok) and Adam got to sample his third dish of the night - though at this stage he was pretty full and already struggling to get through his beer!!

We went to bed with our fingers and toes crossed that our Vietnam visas would be ready in the morning. We packed at night, because it will be a rush to get back from the visa office to the train station across town for our noon train!

Adlibing the last sights of Beijing.

Day 214 - A mission to the Simatai section of the Great Wall.

Our adventures today took us all the way to the Great Wall of China - the wall itself stretches from Liaoning province to Jiayuguan - literally from ocean to desert - and was started over 2000 years ago with an original purpose of keeping out nomads and invading armies. The part of the wall that we decided to travel to is at a place called Simatai, which is a mere 19km section of the wall and has 16 watch towers (unfortunately we could only trek to 12 of them because the government has deemed the next sections too perilous for public access). An interesting feature of the wall at Simatai is that there are "obstacle walls", which are small walls within the main wall itself - this is for extra protection for those crafty ones who make it over the initial wall. We were thankful for the amazing views on arrival - especially given the huge effort we went through to get there! The hostel was offering transport at a price of 180 yuan per person, but we managed to do it for just over 200 for the both of us - though it required a 6am wake up, 3 subway trips, several kilometres of walking to the bus station (including lots of back-tracking), a 1 1/2 bus, and then an hour long mini-van ride through the snowy mountains to get to the wall itself - what a mission!!

When we finally arrived the excitement that had been brewing during the hours of travelling overflowed, and we took off at a rapid pace to get some of the wall under our feet! We spent the next 3 hours scaling the unbelievably steep, slippery and icy wall - one of the bonuses of coming to the wall in winter is that you trade hordes of tourists for a cold, snow-lined wall - it was nice to have a tourist attraction almost all to ourselves for a change!! On our way up we only saw 2 people and on the way down, a handful more! Walking to the east of Simatai we were faced with gruelling steps, crumbling watch-towers to explore and the barren but beautiful view to keep the camera clicking. To one side we had views of mist covered mountains, and to the other side we could see the winding wall that snakes up the Jinshanling section of the wall - whatever way we looked got the same reaction: wow!
At the top Adam conveniently 'overlooked' the sign prohibiting further exploration and the fine that goes with it if caught, and set off to claim a 13th watch-tower and climb along a part of the wall that was only 1 brick wide at parts and sheer drop-offs on either side. Due to time demands Adam's foray into the forbidden was limited and he had to turn back after 10 minutes of running!
The journey back down brought back memories of Tai Shan (Trinket and Wally will understand), though our descent only took an hour instead of half a day! We also cut some time off the walk back to our car by taking a flying fox over the river that separates two parts of the wall - though Liv took some serious convincing and had Adam do double checks on all the equipment (you never can be too sure!).

On the last leg of the walk we past a couple of men fishing through a hole in the ice that had taken over the bottom section of the river.

After a reverse trip back to Beijing - much easier when you know what you're doing and where you're going - we literally collapsed after a 10 hour adlibing mission.

Dinner tonight was at the nearest possible cheap restaurant where we ate under the watchful eye of Chairman Mao himslef!

Adlibing the Great Wall.

Day 213 - A winter's day in the Summer Palace

We rose nice and early, which was just as well because it took us 2 hours to transport ourselves just to the other side of Beijing to make it to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is where Emperors and Empresses took refuge from the summer heat that roasted them in the Forbidden City. On arrival we were much more impressed with this Palace than we were at the Forbidden City a few days ago and we spent the next four hours thoroughly enjoying ourselves as we strolled through temples, corridors, gardens, pavillions and a gigantic lake that became our playground for the day. Adam could hardly contain his excitement when we saw from high above amongst the Buddhist Fragrance Pavillion and Hall of Benevolence and Longevity the tiny dots of people slipping and sliding their way over a frozen Kunming Lake. Much to his disappointment we still had almost half an hours walk through more Palace grounds before Adam could partake in his share of icing around!! On the other hand, Liv decided to obey the sign telling us not to step on the ice (mainly out of fear of spending the rest of the day in freezing cold clothes if she happened to fall in!). Adam skated his way right out into the middle of the lake where he was rewarded with wicked views of the palace grounds above, pagodas off in the distant hills, and he slowly became weary of the growing cracks in the ice, the ever warming sun shining on the ice and the frozen fish only centimetres below!

When Adam eventually joined Liv on more solid ground, he convinced her to ventured just a few metres onto the lake, but soon we were both wandering around the lake. We walked across the 17 arch bridge to the temple on South Lake Island where the Empress traditionally prayed for rain during the summer. We had to pause for a few moments during our walk to stare at the crazy man in his speedos going for a dip amongst the ice! We strolled along a causeway and over numerous stunning bridges to eventually make it around the entire circumference of the Lake.

One of the great things about this palace was that it wasn't under reconstruction and it actually looked liked the real royal China of a past age that people imagine when they think of China.

After making our way around the lake we found ourselves amongst the Qing boat houses and staring at an immobile marble boat that rests on the northern shore of the lake.

After the better part of the afternoon we once again found ourselves on the 2 hour journey back to the hostel where we rested for an hour before making what was meant to be a simple journey to a Beijing Duck Restaurant. After getting completely lost (already a recurring theme) we settled for the first restaurant where Liv could read the characters for the famous Beijing/Peking Roast Duck - a meal that had been on the top of Adam's list of things to do (and nowhere on Liv's) since the beginning of this adlibing tour.

We returned home to plan and pack for our big day tomorrow when we venture out to the Great Wall!

Adlibing the wintry ice of the Summer Palace.

Day 212 - A journey to Tianjin

Today we decided to venture out of Beijing and head to Tianjin a special municipality just like Shanghai and Chongqing (destinations already covered during the adlibing tour).With Tianjin only an hour train ride away, we were soon lost as we tried to make our way to the Ancient Culture Street. The first thing we noticed about Tianjin was that it was still China - unlike the very un-Chinese Beijing we had spent the last few days in - with hectic roads (and people crossing anywhere they like), and numerous street vendors selling everything from Olympic trinkets, maps, food, and tuk-tuk rides!

We disembarked from the gong gong qi che (public bus!) and ambled up the first interesting looking street we found.This amble turned into a long wander through a maze of market stalls selling everything you could possible desire and soon Adam had a new bag to show for the wandering. In the maze we indulged in some street food (savoury pancakes stuffed with fried batter, eggs, spring onion and chilli) and some egg (for Liv) / meat (for Adam) "McMuffins".

We eventually stumbled into the Ancient Culture Street, which was a brand new old street filled with expensive souvenirs (including many of the treats from the markets we had just left but at 10 times the price). In contrast to the markets, the streets here were clean and sign posted in English so we managed to find the Jade Emperor's Pavilion and the Tianhou Temple with ease. After strolling around the temple and enjoying the incense-filled aromas and tranquil halls we walked out half an hour later to see other walking in with tickets clutched in their hands. Around the corner we saw the ticket booth ... whoops!

After leaving the brand new old street, we soon found ourselves in the Old Town, which much to our dismay was actually just a brand new old town based around the restored drum tower! The highlights of the old town for us was Adam sneaking onto police property and purchasing some Peking Opera masks to remember our previous night's experience and decorate some of our barren walls waiting for us back home in Jinan.

Finding ourselves utterly lost again when trying to make it to Jiefang Street, which is famous for its 20th Century European architecture. After attempting to ask one lady for help (she literally screamed and ran in the opposite direction when she saw us), another offered to help us. Soon enough we were surrounded by a crowd of helpers who eventually sent us on our way - however all their help was in vain as we soon became lost again, so we had to resort to a tuk-tuk ride in the end.

When we finally arrived on Jiefang Street we wandered past dozens of beautiful old banks, warehouses, post shops and churches (and even peeked inside some of them) - all survivours from when European forces dominated the area around the turn of the 20th Century. Inside the now Bank of China we got to gaze upwards at the stunning stained glass ceiling, and later at an old Anglican Church. Some buildings were restored to almost new, other basically left in their original state, but in the case of the Church it was basically in ruins.

When the time came to catch the train home, Liv decided to use her navigation skills so we could walk back and enjoy some scenery on the way. Well, we certainly got more scenery than we had counted on - first walking over a frozen river reflecting a pollution shadowed sun, then along a street where we could hardly see or breathe for the amount of dust, dirt, and rubbish that floated in the air and on the street. Liv's constant questions of "we should be able to get there from that road, so why is it blocked off?" were soon answered after we decided to go down one such road anyway: we soon found ourselves in a jungle of hard-hat wearing construction workers and a half demolished train station ... obviously this wasn't the train station we had arrived in and nor was it the one where we would be leaving. Continuing our tour of the construction site we made it to the other end and navigated our way to a main street from where we managed to catch a bus to the current train station just in the nick of time!

Back in Beijing we purchased our train tickets for Guangzhou on Wednesday and feasted on 2-minute noodles for dinner!

Adlibing it back into the real China.

Day 211 - Into the forbidden

Waking naturally for the first time in days (at Liv's insistence) and after a breakfast of porridge, we were soon off to the Forbidden City for half a day's exploration. The Forbidden City was the ancient residence for the Emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties - who basically didn't leave the massive expanse of this Palace that was off limits for 500 years for us commoners!! Handling some initial confusion about buying tickets, warding off tour guides, we finally made it through the crowds into the grounds - not before, of course, having our obligatory photo in front of the huge Mao photo hanging over the entrance gate. Inside we were blown away by the enormity of the Palace - made up of dozens of halls (such as the Hall of Preserving Harmony), gates (such as the Meridian Gate), pavilions and the Imperial Garden. There were so many things that we spent the next three hours drifting in and out of exhibitions displaying ancient treasure, but since we had seen lots of things like this before we spent our time engrossed in the finer details of the grounds and buildings. With the 2008 Olympic games on its way Beijing is in a state of constant renovation, and sadly (for us) some of the beautiful buildings were covered with scaffolding and sheets that prevented us from enjoying them. We noticed from high up on one of the walls we noticed the clear difference between an aged weather worn temple and a repainted rejuvenated one. In our minds, both are gorgeous and it depends on what view of China you're after.

On the recommendation of the Lonely Planet we paid a little extra to go into the Clock Exhibition (housed in the Hall of Ancestral Worship) and while the exhibition itself wasn't particularly exhilarating the clocks were interesting illustrations of the time-telling process of a past age - not to insult the exhibition but more interesting was the hall itself with its beautiful wooden pillars and carved roofing.

Eventually we recrossed the frozen Golden Stream that is spanned 5 marble bridges and made our way across the road to Tianamen Square, which post 1989 is occupied by hundreds of police officers and security guards. A gigantic Chinese flag flaps in the wind of what the Chinese consider the symbolic centre of China and the place that Mao thought of as a representation of the enormity of the Chinese Communist Party.

Leaving the largest public square in the world behind us we then ventured towards food, which by 3pm we were in desperate need of. We filled our tummies with potatoes and eggplant and beer and wandered the last few kilometres back home.
We spent our evening indulging in some Chinese culture at a Beijing (Peking) Opera performance, where we got to witness 2 separate performances. The first was dominated by the famous shrieking of the Peking Opera, which was so much more enjoyable than we had both anticipated. A humourous aspect of the show was that after nearly a minute of singing, English subtitles would come up on the screen only to inform us that the actor had just said "Yes" or something similarly short winded. The second show had a much more dynamic martial arts and acrobatic edge with the actors flying across the stage during the constant battle scene, telling the famous Monkey King story. Our short walk home to bed was filled with excited chattering after a magnificent performance and our dive into China's historical past..

Adlibing dynamic Chinese history.

Day 210 - Training our way into another adlibing Asia tour.

Rising nice and early, in fact so early that our buses weren't even running, we left our apartment for the last time for 2 months at 6am and made our journey to the train station - a place we are going to be spending a lot of time at over the next 2 months. Boarding the fast train, we rocketed away to Beijing, and with a Hostelling International hostel right across from the train station, we had soon offloaded our pack after only having to carry them for a total of 10 minutes on our first day - woohoo!!

After dumping our bags we began our first navigation task in the capital - finding the Vietnamese Embassy, only to find everybody at lunch! Taking their cue we went out in search of lunch ourselves - a task which was much harder than we thought! It seems like Beijing has lost all of its 'China': roads are clean and orderly (cars even stop at red lights), pedestrians cross when the green man flashes, buildings are extremely Western, and there were no street food vendors in sight!

After lunch we spent half an hour relaxing in a park before our up and coming visa adventure! On arrival at the embassy we were delightfully surprised with the quick and speedy process - we were in and out within 20 minutes! Nothing like the hours we endured in Hong Kong!

Back at the hostel we lazed around before heading to a vegetarian restaurant right across the road from us where we dined on chicken and fish for dinner!

Adlibing it to China's capital.

Days 205-209 - Our adlibing travels continue in Henan Province with friends

The beginning of our first day of holidays on Saturday was pretty simple - mainly because we spent 8 hours of it on the train from Jinan to Zhengzhou (the capital of Henan province)!! On arrival in Zhengzhou we were met by our friend David at the train station - who then enjoyed the next hour with us as we battle our way through the overly jam-packed train station to buy our return ticket to Jinan for a few days later. Leaving the line an hour later with a ticket to Jinan we checked at the door, only to realise that Liv had very inconveniently purchased night tickets for Wednesday night instead of Tuesday. If we were running to our normal adlibing plans this wouldn't have been a problem, but we have a train leaving Jinan for Beijing on Thursday morning, leaving before the train we had tickets for would be arriving!! We pushed to the front of the line (having learnt to do so from the locals) and were informed to come back the next day to change our tickets.

With nothing left to do we jumped in the taxi and headed towards Shengda - the college where David and Gael teach English. After arriving much later than anticipated we were met by Gael and a couple of other teachers who had been waiting to meet us and take us out to a local restaurant for dinner. Before heading out into the night again, we added a few more layers as Zhengzhou is friggin' freezing! Over dinner we swapped China travel and teaching stories, and Adam got to enjoy a new variety of beer (Aoke). We are so grateful and stoked that Gael and David arranged a studio apartment at their beautiful college for us - it fitted in perfectly with our budget very well (considering it was free!). It was interesting seeing how other teachers live in comparison to us. On the whole there are pros and cons to each of our teaching gigs.

On Sunday morning we woke super early to visit the Shaolin Temple, which is one of Henan's major draw cards. This required over an hour to get to the bus station from where we could catch a bus to Dengfeng. First we attempted to change our train tickets, but hit resistance and were told once again to return tomorrow - after almost 7 months in China some of their systems still fail to make any sense to us. After another 2 hours on the bus we arrived in Dengfeng from where we tried to follow the Lonely Planet's directions for public buses to the temple, which turned out to be utterly wrong, in the end (after battling with the public buses for over an hour) time frames required us to succumb to the anti-adlibbing step of taking a taxi!
All the hassle to get there was worth it as the temple, though predominantly renovated after surviving through several wars and the cultural revolution, was beautiful. We spent several hours wandering the grounds where we encountered a few halls with stunning old frescoes - one of which housed the shadow stone of Bodhidharma - a monk who was rejected from the temple and spent 9 years sitting upright and praying to the stone wall in order to rest his brain - the result is that his shadow is left on the stone.

Another highlight was the pagoda forest full of (surprisingly) hundreds of old pagodas, some showing their age and crumbling to pieces. The day ended with a demonstration of Shaolin gongfu by present-day monks, where they showed off their amazing and almost inhuman talents of fighting styles based on animals' movements such as snakes and tigers. They also showed their weapon skills with very unique weapons that would be scary enough without a fighting monk-machine on the other end! After the show Adam got to play around with some of the training equipment outside, along with the hundreds of others who flocked to view this world renowned temple. After a number of hours on the bus we eventually made it back to Zhengzhou. Following our friends' strict instructions we hopped on the bus to take us straight back to the college. We hit a hitch however when after an hour on the bus a friendly student sitting next to Liv informed us that this bus was going to a completely different university! We jumped off with her and soon she had us piled into a tuk-tuk and accompanied us on the short journey back to our campus - just another demonstration of the incredible hospitality that Chinese people constantly provide. She even paid for the trip and wouldn't take any money back from us - claiming it was her 'honour and pleasure' to do so!

Back at the college we had a new group of teachers ready to take us out to another local restaurant, where Adam got introduced to a meal we are yet to encounter in Jinan. The meal was basically a big baking train filled with a chicken, potato, and chilli stew - the catch was the whole chicken was just chopped up in big chunks, with feet sticking out and eyes staring you in the face. The custom was for the guest to receive the chicken head - Adam was the first of many guests to actually accept the challenge and soon feasting on gooey chicken brains! Liv was more civilized and dined on usual yummy Chinese veges. At the end the dish is filled with an endless supply of hot noodles to fill you up, though everyone was already pretty full after enjoying another lot of beer that Adam can add to his list.

Both evenings when we were taken out for dinner, we were asked by our hosts whether or not the places we were going to were up to our standards!!! If only they knew the places we dined at back home in Jinan ...

Waking even earlier on Monday we again ventured to the train station and this time were successful in getting sleeper tickets home for the next night! Thank goodness for that! By 8.30am were on a bus headed to Luoyang, which happens to be the original starting point of the silk road and home to the Longmen Grottoes - our destination for the day. These caves were begun in AD494 and were completed over the next 200 years - and were phenomenal to say the least. There are more than 100,000 images of Buddha and his disciples carved into the rock, 2,800 inscriptions and 2,345 caves stretching more than a kilometre along the Yi He (Yi River). It was sad to see so many with heads missing or having been totally destroyed during the cultural revolution or removed by collectors over the years - the positive of this though is that the government is now undertaking restoration work and making protection the main priority. The sheer size of some of the carvings blew our minds away, and even though we had planned to spend a short period of time here so we could make it back for new year's eve dinner celebrations, we inadvertently lingered around, being awestruck by the complexity of these carvings created by chisels and a lot of devotion.

Unfortunately we didn't come close to making it back to Zhengzhou in time for dinner with David and Gael and friends, instead we had to dine on a very average Chinese fast-food meal. We managed to check in to the wonderful hotel (the Starlight Holiday Hotel) that they had booked for us and left a note at reception to grab us when they arrived and give us our bag they were bringing in for us, with slightly more respectable attire. We were oblivious to the fact that David had already made a visit to the hotel during the day after being unable to find the number to call and book a room for us as they had given us the only hotel card they had with the number on it! After waiting around the hotel, we got a phone call from one of their friends with details of the bar they were celebrating at, and soon Liv was utilising her Chinese skills in convincing the hotel reception staff to let us into David and Gael's room to fetch our bag! Soon, we were on our way to join the party!

When we arrived at the 'bar' we were a little taken aback, as the bar was in the most luxurious hotel we have ever seen!!! We were told to make our way to "Scott's Bar" and were not expecting the 5-star hotel bar that we ended up in. Here we spent the next few hours knocking back tequila shots and sipping Champagne with a good crowd from David and Gael's school. For some reason at 11.45pm the group decided to head to a more hip nightclub (Enjoy Disco Club) for the countdown and we were literally walking in the door when the new year's countdown began, in Chinese of course - which was more difficult to join in with than one might think!
Before long we were invited to join a Chinese group at their table where we were shared a few free beers and spirits with them! The men were constantly pouring class after class of cognac for us - in true Chinese style! Eventually the last few days of early mornings caught up with us and we returned to the hotel with David and a very tired Gael - who had very impressively run a half marathon on the treadmill earlier on in the day. Back at the hotel we literally fell into bed!

We spent the first day of 2008 being shown around Zhengzhou city - we visited their huge supermakets, shopped in the local street markets and indulged in some of Zhengzhou's finest street food. We eventually had to farewell David and Gael as they headed back to their college for their last week of teaching before going back to New Zealand - very jealous (in some ways)!

We found ourselves with 5 hours of free-time before our train and decided to spend some time in the internet cafe before heading out to dinner and boarding our sleep train home!

We were woken up by a tap on the feet by the train conductor alerting us to the fact that we were half an hour off Jinan. Back in familiar territory it was a quick and painless process to catch the buses back to our apartment. Today we are spending the day preparing and packing for our 7 week holiday. First stop: Beijing.

Adlibing it into 2008.

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.