A couple of weeks ago Adam had a very unfortunate encounter with one of his students (we'll call him Wanker) - who, after being caught for cheating, stomped on Adam's jandal-footed feet. And we mean actually stomp. With full intensity. Without going into any of the boring details, the short end of it is that on Monday Wanker was forced by the university to take us out for lunch - which according to wanker is a 'sign of friendship and unity'. Well, you could have fooled us, because it seemed like all he was interested in was eating the food the university ended up shelling out for and laughing with our boss and our boss's boss. His forced apology was a muffled 'sorry', which he clearly didn't mean. Oh well, we got a free feed, Adam's foot is fine, and we just figure that his father must be someone special considering the way the director of our campus was treating him. In fact, we're wondering what will happen when Adam fails Wanker as he happens to also suck at English.
On the topic of free food, you'll never believe what they ordered for us - fermented duck eggs. Just like the ones we had mistakenly (and regrettably) ordered for ourselves last week. These turned out to be better than the ones we ordered - giving us the impression that those fermented eggs were also off - mmm mmmm imagine the combination.
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent following our normal routines of complaining about 8am classes (and the forward-planning for next week's classes), eating our homemade delicacies, and doing the weekly shop. At this particular shop we may as well have been shopping for the next month as we stocked up on rations to accommodate our guests who arrive tomorrow! Don't worry, we managed to find some weird Chinese 'treats' to tantalise their taste buds.
And now all we have to look forward to is 4 days off work and a week with Dad and Murray.
Adlibing our way through fermented eggs, again. Seriously?!!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Days 137-143 - Chilling our way to the weekend
The beginning of our week was spent just chilling out and teaching. We are conserving our energy for the missions we plan to undertake when Dr Death and Murray arrive next week! The first thing of note that we did this week was on Wednesday when as usual Adam went to foreigners' night at Wei Weis, while Liv stayed up all night catching herself up on (and scaring herself silly watching) LOST. The foreigners at Wei Weis this week were quite the spectacle with over 40 people attending during the night - so many laowai in one place!! Even the people who live across the road and see us every Wednesday, had to take a second look at such a mass of white!
On average there is usually only about 20 people there every week, depending on which of the 100+ foreigners show up. After a feed and some beers, a form of mass migration occurred as we all made our way to what Adam calls the "Long Way Home" bar, because that's how the Chinese words sounds. He also thinks this is very appropriate as Adam usually arrives home in the wee hours of the morning, much longer than if he had just gone to Wei Weis. Just how often the foreigners go to this bar was illustrated when some of the girls took along a mix-cd of their own for the dj to play!
By the time Adam came home, Liv had only just made it to bed herself, after being so scared she didn't want to move! Dee, I need you here to do these things ...]
Our day off on Thursday was spent in the usual manner. The morning was reserved for Adam's recovery and the afternoon was spent in town eating and shopping. While we were wandering along the main road in town, we had to pause and join the growing crowd watching an entire apartment building being demolished by the gaping jaws of heavy machinery! This is a demonstration of what is happening all over China, as the old makes way for the new.
On Friday we chilled and taught some more, which is kind of the whole reason that we are stationary and not adlibing our way to a new destination every 2-3 days.
After spending the day at home doing the whole 'chilling out' thing, by about 4pm on Saturday Adam decided to do something. Unfortunately Liv doesn't run, so he headed out by himself for an exploration by foot, while Liv continued sorting out the thousands of photos we have of our adlibing adventures so far. Once again Adam managed to get lost and in the process found a new walking adventure for both of us to enjoy another day. This walk will lead us from the highway of modern China down a dirt road to a small village round the corner, with the appearance that makes it look like it has been tucked out of sight. So even though we had a very relaxed day, we finally achieved the task of organising and putting our photos online - hope you're enjoying them!
On Saturday night, we went to dinner with one of Liv's students at a restaurant nearby school, and soon enough we were home in time to do some more chilling and movie watching. We made the mistake of not taking our trusty umbrellas with us, and got caught in the thunder and lightning storm on the way home - though this didn't prevent Adam from taking the long way home via the store to fill up him backpack with beer, of course!
Believe it or not, Sunday was spent in much the same fashion as the last 6 days of the week. We fed our Grey's Anatomy addiction, even though we have seen all the episodes - but seriously sometimes the body needs to do nothing but watch Grey's. Seriously.
The adlibers spend their week chilling.
On average there is usually only about 20 people there every week, depending on which of the 100+ foreigners show up. After a feed and some beers, a form of mass migration occurred as we all made our way to what Adam calls the "Long Way Home" bar, because that's how the Chinese words sounds. He also thinks this is very appropriate as Adam usually arrives home in the wee hours of the morning, much longer than if he had just gone to Wei Weis. Just how often the foreigners go to this bar was illustrated when some of the girls took along a mix-cd of their own for the dj to play!
By the time Adam came home, Liv had only just made it to bed herself, after being so scared she didn't want to move! Dee, I need you here to do these things ...]
Our day off on Thursday was spent in the usual manner. The morning was reserved for Adam's recovery and the afternoon was spent in town eating and shopping. While we were wandering along the main road in town, we had to pause and join the growing crowd watching an entire apartment building being demolished by the gaping jaws of heavy machinery! This is a demonstration of what is happening all over China, as the old makes way for the new.
On Friday we chilled and taught some more, which is kind of the whole reason that we are stationary and not adlibing our way to a new destination every 2-3 days.
After spending the day at home doing the whole 'chilling out' thing, by about 4pm on Saturday Adam decided to do something. Unfortunately Liv doesn't run, so he headed out by himself for an exploration by foot, while Liv continued sorting out the thousands of photos we have of our adlibing adventures so far. Once again Adam managed to get lost and in the process found a new walking adventure for both of us to enjoy another day. This walk will lead us from the highway of modern China down a dirt road to a small village round the corner, with the appearance that makes it look like it has been tucked out of sight. So even though we had a very relaxed day, we finally achieved the task of organising and putting our photos online - hope you're enjoying them!
On Saturday night, we went to dinner with one of Liv's students at a restaurant nearby school, and soon enough we were home in time to do some more chilling and movie watching. We made the mistake of not taking our trusty umbrellas with us, and got caught in the thunder and lightning storm on the way home - though this didn't prevent Adam from taking the long way home via the store to fill up him backpack with beer, of course!
Believe it or not, Sunday was spent in much the same fashion as the last 6 days of the week. We fed our Grey's Anatomy addiction, even though we have seen all the episodes - but seriously sometimes the body needs to do nothing but watch Grey's. Seriously.
The adlibers spend their week chilling.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Days 130-136 - Teaching our way to a wicked weekend
With work becoming more and more uneventful Adam decided to add a new element to the English lessons - with the sun shining down he ventured outside and up the mountains behind the university to give his good classes a lesson in using volume (Chinese students generally speak so quietly it's next to impossible to hear them, let alone understand them). Soon Adam had 20 students spread out amongst the mountain. Broken into pairs the students were instructed to hold conversations with the little twist that their partner was between 5 and 20 metres away! The end result was a fun class with happy students. 
We are becoming very used to the students who are constantly 'sick' not coming to class, and although they may think they are fooling us, we are just glad to have one less student in the class, who doesn't want to be there in the first place. All this means is that we have more time to help those students who actually want to learn - oh no! we really are becoming teachers ...
On Tuesday while the devoted teacher spent time helping a student prepare for her test, the other teacher took his skateboard for a cruise, dodging cars and buses on his way to scout out a nearby mountain to find a path we could follow in the weekend.
Wednesday brought with it the routine of attending foreigners night (for Adam anyway) - this is a great chance to speak English and be understood, drink lots if you want to, and enjoy some great meat kebabs. After eating and drinking the night away at Wei Weis, Adam felt less than enthusiastic about doing anything on Thursday, so the first half of our day was spent doing absolutely nothing (except for Adam moaning), until Adam built up the strength to venture into town for some shopping.
With Adam's adlibed path finding adventure to draw upon, on Saturday we found ourselves ascending one of the many mountains that surround the university, and cut it off from the pollution and noise that exists on the other sides of the mountains. These are the mountains that we feel happy to wake up to every morning (when we can see them through the haze). On this particular mountain there are 3 pagodas scattered amongst the trees, but before we could lose ourselves in the forest of green we had to negotiate a path through the rubble left behind after the destruction of an entire block of houses. The reality of our path really hit home when we came across painted partly intact sections of houses poking through the piles of bricks and stone.
After picking our way through the rubble we found ourselves on a narrow dirt path that weaved its way around shrubs, rocks, and trees up to the first pagoda which seemed to appear out of nowhere. After clearing the spider webs off our faces we were able to enjoy sitting in the sun under the pagoda's colourfully decorated beams, but the height of pagoda number 2 beckoned and we were soon on our way. Pagoda number 2 was bathed in even more sun, which naturally prolonged our rest there. Our resting was interspersed with eating and drinking the new (and usually scrumptious) snacks we're slowly being brave enough to put into our shopping trolleys, and Adam monkeying around trying to scale the pagoda!
On arrival at pagoda number 3 (making it to the top via a flash stone path that we come to expect on all mountain climbs here) we were met with an astonishing panorama of the university, the city in the distance, and the rest of the mountains of Jinan(including a couple of the other mountains we have already climbed). Hanging out in the sunshine we used the advantage of height to search around for the next mountain to conquer.
Stumbling upon a new route down, we soon found ourselves walking through a new Chinese 'sub-division', complete with its own bank, doctors clinic and a restaurant. Relatively hungry from our exertion, we needed no persuasion to duck in for a feed. The short of it is that we left almost as quick as we arrived (and no less hungry) after Adam's attempt of point and choose led to some rather interesting 'food'. Dish number one left us looking forward to something yummy for dish number two. However when dish number two arrived, we couldn't have been more thankful that we had dish number one!! Number one was a cold vinegar-soaked diced cucumber and rice noodle dish with cold meat sprinkled on top. Number two was fermented eggs (of some variety) - the white of the eggs were anything but white, but instead were positively brown and some how crystallised, while the yolk was an appetising black. After a mouthful of the eggs just to try, we decided to leave the rest and make a dash for home.
We are becoming very used to the students who are constantly 'sick' not coming to class, and although they may think they are fooling us, we are just glad to have one less student in the class, who doesn't want to be there in the first place. All this means is that we have more time to help those students who actually want to learn - oh no! we really are becoming teachers ...On Tuesday while the devoted teacher spent time helping a student prepare for her test, the other teacher took his skateboard for a cruise, dodging cars and buses on his way to scout out a nearby mountain to find a path we could follow in the weekend.
Wednesday brought with it the routine of attending foreigners night (for Adam anyway) - this is a great chance to speak English and be understood, drink lots if you want to, and enjoy some great meat kebabs. After eating and drinking the night away at Wei Weis, Adam felt less than enthusiastic about doing anything on Thursday, so the first half of our day was spent doing absolutely nothing (except for Adam moaning), until Adam built up the strength to venture into town for some shopping.
With Adam's adlibed path finding adventure to draw upon, on Saturday we found ourselves ascending one of the many mountains that surround the university, and cut it off from the pollution and noise that exists on the other sides of the mountains. These are the mountains that we feel happy to wake up to every morning (when we can see them through the haze). On this particular mountain there are 3 pagodas scattered amongst the trees, but before we could lose ourselves in the forest of green we had to negotiate a path through the rubble left behind after the destruction of an entire block of houses. The reality of our path really hit home when we came across painted partly intact sections of houses poking through the piles of bricks and stone.
After picking our way through the rubble we found ourselves on a narrow dirt path that weaved its way around shrubs, rocks, and trees up to the first pagoda which seemed to appear out of nowhere. After clearing the spider webs off our faces we were able to enjoy sitting in the sun under the pagoda's colourfully decorated beams, but the height of pagoda number 2 beckoned and we were soon on our way. Pagoda number 2 was bathed in even more sun, which naturally prolonged our rest there. Our resting was interspersed with eating and drinking the new (and usually scrumptious) snacks we're slowly being brave enough to put into our shopping trolleys, and Adam monkeying around trying to scale the pagoda!On arrival at pagoda number 3 (making it to the top via a flash stone path that we come to expect on all mountain climbs here) we were met with an astonishing panorama of the university, the city in the distance, and the rest of the mountains of Jinan(including a couple of the other mountains we have already climbed). Hanging out in the sunshine we used the advantage of height to search around for the next mountain to conquer.Stumbling upon a new route down, we soon found ourselves walking through a new Chinese 'sub-division', complete with its own bank, doctors clinic and a restaurant. Relatively hungry from our exertion, we needed no persuasion to duck in for a feed. The short of it is that we left almost as quick as we arrived (and no less hungry) after Adam's attempt of point and choose led to some rather interesting 'food'. Dish number one left us looking forward to something yummy for dish number two. However when dish number two arrived, we couldn't have been more thankful that we had dish number one!! Number one was a cold vinegar-soaked diced cucumber and rice noodle dish with cold meat sprinkled on top. Number two was fermented eggs (of some variety) - the white of the eggs were anything but white, but instead were positively brown and some how crystallised, while the yolk was an appetising black. After a mouthful of the eggs just to try, we decided to leave the rest and make a dash for home.Adam is making good use of the new addition to the adlibing crew (his skateboard), and is doing a very good job of skating very badly. But hey, he's having fun, getting hurt, and he's pretty sure that if he's getting hurt he's doing at least something right.
Saturday night saw an adventure into the nightlife of Jinan, when we headed to Banjo Bar for a live punk rock performance by Chinese band Sko - they call their style "Beijing Melodic Punk" and were pretty friggin' awesome! While Liv showed her sophisticated, mature side and enjoyed the music with the other sane concert-goers, Adam moshed his way to the front and lost himself amongst the Chinese rockers! We had to question whether Scotty had indeed beamed us right back to Wellington, as looking around the western-style bar we saw patrons drinking beers, knocking back shots, and generally dancing and chatting the night away - it was kind of a surreal experience to realise that partying and bar life is the same, world over. Though the night wasn't without the normal Chinese adaptions - such as the portable beer tap (basically a big cylinder with an ice compartment in the middle, to keep the beer cold), and the ability to buy an entire bottle of spirits to have on the table (and then return it once you have (or are) drunk enough). Oh yeah ... and of course, the fact that most of the music was in Chinese as were most of the patrons.
After the headliners were finished, we were treated to the house band, who absolutely rocked - the female lead singer warmed up with a powerful Tibetan melody with a rock backing. We were also spoilt with a few English favourites, including "Take me home, Country roads" and "Yellow Submarine". While the rest of the laowai sung away to the familiar beats of the Beatles' classic Yellow Submarine, Liv buried her head, as she had taught this song to her class a few weeks ago and really had had enough of hearing the very repetitive song!
After a late Saturday night, Sunday morning was spent sleeping. By the afternoon we were ready to brave the outside world and cut a track to catch the 115 - one of our local buses which delivered us back to the trendy Shan Shi Dong Lu for some lunch (made much more successful than Saturday's, due to Liv taking charge of the ordering) and shopping. Liv managed to come home with a pair of jeans, complete with the Chinese essential 'frills' (Adam kindly spent an hour removing them at home), and an English newspaper (they are really hard to find!). After checking out numerous trendy shops, Adam needed an energy top up and managed to fill his belly with a Chinese adaption of the doner kebab with shaved meat, spices, and herbs.
After a great weekend, we headed back home to the drudgery of planning for a new teaching week.
Adlibing the local mountains and bars.
After the headliners were finished, we were treated to the house band, who absolutely rocked - the female lead singer warmed up with a powerful Tibetan melody with a rock backing. We were also spoilt with a few English favourites, including "Take me home, Country roads" and "Yellow Submarine". While the rest of the laowai sung away to the familiar beats of the Beatles' classic Yellow Submarine, Liv buried her head, as she had taught this song to her class a few weeks ago and really had had enough of hearing the very repetitive song!
After a late Saturday night, Sunday morning was spent sleeping. By the afternoon we were ready to brave the outside world and cut a track to catch the 115 - one of our local buses which delivered us back to the trendy Shan Shi Dong Lu for some lunch (made much more successful than Saturday's, due to Liv taking charge of the ordering) and shopping. Liv managed to come home with a pair of jeans, complete with the Chinese essential 'frills' (Adam kindly spent an hour removing them at home), and an English newspaper (they are really hard to find!). After checking out numerous trendy shops, Adam needed an energy top up and managed to fill his belly with a Chinese adaption of the doner kebab with shaved meat, spices, and herbs.
After a great weekend, we headed back home to the drudgery of planning for a new teaching week.
Adlibing the local mountains and bars.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Day 129 - Scaling Da Fo Tou Shan
Out of the pollution and dust that consistently clouds our days, Sunday broke free into a crystal clear day that screamed "get out and enjoy". So after getting together the foreign teacher crew (including the new addition: Teacher Matt, or Mr K to his students!) we boarded the trusty 115 bus and headed in the direction of Da Fo Tou Shan (Big Buddha Head Mountain), trusting Dovid to take on the tour guide role!
We were soon dodging cars as we weaved our way through an alley way to the base of the mountain. The joy of climbing this mountain is that you don't have to pay to enjoy it, and even though it's not as famous as its neighbour "1,000 Buddha Mountain", it towers above its neighbour and is far less touristy. Without Dovid's prior experience on the mountain, we probably wouldn't have found it ourselves, but by following his lead we were soon clambering upwards with the locals out and about for their Sunday hike.
The mountain started in the typical Chinese way with stone steps, but we were pleasantly surprised when the stone paths gave way to a dirt track that branched its way up the mountain, giving plenty of routes to choose from - luckily we knew the direction we had to go in (up)!
At the beginning of our climb we were dwarfed by the surrounding peaks, and sheltered from the sun and wind by the forest that blanketed the mountain. All of a sudden we emerged from the blanket and began rapidly ascending the ridge line - the only way to brake Dovid's pace was to get the camera out to capture the scenery that never ceases to amaze us!
About 3/4 of the way to the top sits a Golden Buddha Head (hence the name ...) said to be .. well .. old. Here we rested and enjoyed the open view of the sprawling city of Jinan city below us, while Chinese worshippers made offerings of incense to Buddha providing the only smoke entering our lungs on this sunny Jinan day. 
Not satisfied until making it to the top of the mountain, we left the worshippers behind us and continued our march upwards. It was at this point that the dirt track gave way to a rocky cliff side that we struggled up using any tree or root as leverage. 
If the view we had of the city was magnificent at the previous stop, the view from the top was almost too hot for our camera to handle! From the top we had panoramic views, not only of the city but also of the legendary mountains that encase Jinan and provide the inspiration for the province's name - East of the Mountains. At the top of the mountain, we were met with a sturdy rock wall keeping us out from something, it even had real barbed wire instead of the makeshift broken class spikes. This didn't stop Adam from scaling the wall to peek over, though the effort was hardly rewarded as there was nothing of note to see behind the wall, except for an aging and rusting TV tower.
From the top we picked a new route that allowed us to descend while making a 360 degree loop around the top of the mountain. On the way down, the sky was so clear we could see the famous Tai Shan in the distance and look down over villages cut into the cliff sides. It was a complete contrast to look down over the metropolis of Jinan while standing on one side of the mountain, and see nothing but barren and almost surreal mountains and small villages on the other.
After setting out for the climb a good 3-4 hours earlier, we managed to make our way down and set about the task of finding somewhere cheap to eat - an easy task in China! As seems to be a running theme, we once again ordered way too many dishes to fed a small number of mouths - we ended up with 3 plates of dumplings, 4 different vege dishes (including a dish of kumara pieces covered in caramelised sugar - more suited as a desert!), and a pork dish, and not to mention several bottles of beer and pots tea - all of this on a small table for the four of us!
Making our way towards home, we headed down Shan Shi Dong Lu - a street we will frequent a lot during our time here as it is full of trendy clothing and bag stores, shoe stores galore, cheap and tasty-looking restaurants, and streetside stalls selling everything from snacks to newspapers. But most importantly we found what we have been looking for since we arrived: a fresh market full of fruit, veges, noodles, rice, spices and more!
Returning home after night fall, we set about the tedious task of preparing for the day's classes ahead of us - 8 hours of teaching starting at 8am in the morning!
Adlibing it into the clear sky.
We were soon dodging cars as we weaved our way through an alley way to the base of the mountain. The joy of climbing this mountain is that you don't have to pay to enjoy it, and even though it's not as famous as its neighbour "1,000 Buddha Mountain", it towers above its neighbour and is far less touristy. Without Dovid's prior experience on the mountain, we probably wouldn't have found it ourselves, but by following his lead we were soon clambering upwards with the locals out and about for their Sunday hike.
The mountain started in the typical Chinese way with stone steps, but we were pleasantly surprised when the stone paths gave way to a dirt track that branched its way up the mountain, giving plenty of routes to choose from - luckily we knew the direction we had to go in (up)!
At the beginning of our climb we were dwarfed by the surrounding peaks, and sheltered from the sun and wind by the forest that blanketed the mountain. All of a sudden we emerged from the blanket and began rapidly ascending the ridge line - the only way to brake Dovid's pace was to get the camera out to capture the scenery that never ceases to amaze us! About 3/4 of the way to the top sits a Golden Buddha Head (hence the name ...) said to be .. well .. old. Here we rested and enjoyed the open view of the sprawling city of Jinan city below us, while Chinese worshippers made offerings of incense to Buddha providing the only smoke entering our lungs on this sunny Jinan day. Not satisfied until making it to the top of the mountain, we left the worshippers behind us and continued our march upwards. It was at this point that the dirt track gave way to a rocky cliff side that we struggled up using any tree or root as leverage. If the view we had of the city was magnificent at the previous stop, the view from the top was almost too hot for our camera to handle! From the top we had panoramic views, not only of the city but also of the legendary mountains that encase Jinan and provide the inspiration for the province's name - East of the Mountains. At the top of the mountain, we were met with a sturdy rock wall keeping us out from something, it even had real barbed wire instead of the makeshift broken class spikes. This didn't stop Adam from scaling the wall to peek over, though the effort was hardly rewarded as there was nothing of note to see behind the wall, except for an aging and rusting TV tower.From the top we picked a new route that allowed us to descend while making a 360 degree loop around the top of the mountain. On the way down, the sky was so clear we could see the famous Tai Shan in the distance and look down over villages cut into the cliff sides. It was a complete contrast to look down over the metropolis of Jinan while standing on one side of the mountain, and see nothing but barren and almost surreal mountains and small villages on the other.
After setting out for the climb a good 3-4 hours earlier, we managed to make our way down and set about the task of finding somewhere cheap to eat - an easy task in China! As seems to be a running theme, we once again ordered way too many dishes to fed a small number of mouths - we ended up with 3 plates of dumplings, 4 different vege dishes (including a dish of kumara pieces covered in caramelised sugar - more suited as a desert!), and a pork dish, and not to mention several bottles of beer and pots tea - all of this on a small table for the four of us!Making our way towards home, we headed down Shan Shi Dong Lu - a street we will frequent a lot during our time here as it is full of trendy clothing and bag stores, shoe stores galore, cheap and tasty-looking restaurants, and streetside stalls selling everything from snacks to newspapers. But most importantly we found what we have been looking for since we arrived: a fresh market full of fruit, veges, noodles, rice, spices and more!
Returning home after night fall, we set about the tedious task of preparing for the day's classes ahead of us - 8 hours of teaching starting at 8am in the morning!
Adlibing it into the clear sky.
Days 123-128 - Relaxing the week away in preparation for an action packed weekend
After 9 days off teaching, we have to admit that getting back into work again was a bit of a drag! However the week's classes went well, and our light schedule still gives us lots of time outside of class to do what we want. It just so happens that this week we didn't really want to do much, until our day off on Thursday.
On Thursday it rained. Not the normal kind of rain from above, but the kind that arises when Liv has a bad day in China. Despite China being a phenomenal experience that we wouldn't give up for the world, the reality of being pushed out of our comfort zone so far away from home and on such a regular basis has the effect of stretching our emotions to the extremes some days. On such days, Adam usually takes the role of the sensitive comforting boyfriend, but on this particular Thursday Adam's own strained emotions meant Liv's tears were met with an indifferent "what the heck is your problem, you're the one who wanted to come to China in the first place?" attitude.
Luckily, after a silent bus trip downtown we found a restaurant with vege dumplings and all Liv's worries were forgotten - except maybe some resentment at Adam's previous attitude! Never fear, as Adam knows how to solve these problems and soon we were off shopping - the bargains of the day being more dvds and some new glasses for Liv, which she paid a ridiculously low price for! On the way back to the bus we detoured along 'our' river, and past Black Tiger Spring, where we did our fair share of people-watching and hanging out on the local bridges.
Giving our emotions a chance to recover, our Friday was literally spent sleeping in, eating, teaching 2 classes, eating, and then sleeping again. On second thoughts, this teaching life may not be too bad after all ...
Come the weekend it was lucky that we had had such a lazy week, because our weekend was jammed pack. On Saturday we explored Jinan's sights, and on Sunday we undertook some high altitude adventuring.
On Saturday we went to the food street for a feed, where we ordered enough for an army, and then on top of that we were brought out another dish that Liv swore she didn't order! The thing is that we started eating before we realised that we hadn't ordered it, but that's what happens when you undertake the "yi ge zhe ge" ("one of that") style of ordering - you're never quite sure what's going to come out to the table! The short (and fat) of the situation, is that we spent the next hour and a half chopsticking away, and at the end we had almost cleared the entire table. Adam was still licking his lips after his own personal meal of garlic shellfish, and Liv was scared that Adam was considering a re-order!
Hardly capable of walking, we wobbled out of the restaurant towards one of Jinan's many Springs: Five Dragon Pool. As mentioned before, Jinan is world famous in China for its 70+ underground springs that bubble up to the surface all over the city, creating a sparkling, clear oasis in a normally dusty and polluted city. The locals even fill up their water bottles from these springs, an act that elsewhere in China would result in a visit to the doctor.
We spent a good few hours ambling along the pathways that twist along the river, in and out of bamboo forests, and zig-zagging our way between the many springs that over time have been made into small ponds - complete with rock sculptures and Chinese pagodas.
Adam managed to make a spectacle out of himself by climbing on ornamental frogs perched in the middle of springs and undertaking the Chinese tradition of throwing coins into a spring for good luck. 
Our peaceful wanderings were interrupted on several occasions by teenagers wanting to capture a photo with the laowai, as well as being stopped by parents and grandparents wanting their kids to say hello to us!
At the end of our stroll we got up close and personal with some Chinese heroes from the past. Unfortunately they weren't in a talkative mood, so we didn't hang around for long!
We have a lot to say about our adventures on Sunday, so check out our next post where we'll take you to one of the highest points in Jinan for views of the city!
Lazily adlibing the bubbling Springs.
On Thursday it rained. Not the normal kind of rain from above, but the kind that arises when Liv has a bad day in China. Despite China being a phenomenal experience that we wouldn't give up for the world, the reality of being pushed out of our comfort zone so far away from home and on such a regular basis has the effect of stretching our emotions to the extremes some days. On such days, Adam usually takes the role of the sensitive comforting boyfriend, but on this particular Thursday Adam's own strained emotions meant Liv's tears were met with an indifferent "what the heck is your problem, you're the one who wanted to come to China in the first place?" attitude.
Luckily, after a silent bus trip downtown we found a restaurant with vege dumplings and all Liv's worries were forgotten - except maybe some resentment at Adam's previous attitude! Never fear, as Adam knows how to solve these problems and soon we were off shopping - the bargains of the day being more dvds and some new glasses for Liv, which she paid a ridiculously low price for! On the way back to the bus we detoured along 'our' river, and past Black Tiger Spring, where we did our fair share of people-watching and hanging out on the local bridges.
Giving our emotions a chance to recover, our Friday was literally spent sleeping in, eating, teaching 2 classes, eating, and then sleeping again. On second thoughts, this teaching life may not be too bad after all ...Come the weekend it was lucky that we had had such a lazy week, because our weekend was jammed pack. On Saturday we explored Jinan's sights, and on Sunday we undertook some high altitude adventuring.
On Saturday we went to the food street for a feed, where we ordered enough for an army, and then on top of that we were brought out another dish that Liv swore she didn't order! The thing is that we started eating before we realised that we hadn't ordered it, but that's what happens when you undertake the "yi ge zhe ge" ("one of that") style of ordering - you're never quite sure what's going to come out to the table! The short (and fat) of the situation, is that we spent the next hour and a half chopsticking away, and at the end we had almost cleared the entire table. Adam was still licking his lips after his own personal meal of garlic shellfish, and Liv was scared that Adam was considering a re-order!
Hardly capable of walking, we wobbled out of the restaurant towards one of Jinan's many Springs: Five Dragon Pool. As mentioned before, Jinan is world famous in China for its 70+ underground springs that bubble up to the surface all over the city, creating a sparkling, clear oasis in a normally dusty and polluted city. The locals even fill up their water bottles from these springs, an act that elsewhere in China would result in a visit to the doctor.
We spent a good few hours ambling along the pathways that twist along the river, in and out of bamboo forests, and zig-zagging our way between the many springs that over time have been made into small ponds - complete with rock sculptures and Chinese pagodas. Adam managed to make a spectacle out of himself by climbing on ornamental frogs perched in the middle of springs and undertaking the Chinese tradition of throwing coins into a spring for good luck. Our peaceful wanderings were interrupted on several occasions by teenagers wanting to capture a photo with the laowai, as well as being stopped by parents and grandparents wanting their kids to say hello to us!On our way home we ambled our way through Quan Cheng Guangchang (Spring City Square), which is the focal point of Jinan city. Here we gazed upon dancing kites (which, compared with the kites back home, are more like 10 kites all stretched along the same line) being flown in the cloud blanketed sky by people of all ages while relaxing in the warm autumn evening. 
At the end of our stroll we got up close and personal with some Chinese heroes from the past. Unfortunately they weren't in a talkative mood, so we didn't hang around for long!We have a lot to say about our adventures on Sunday, so check out our next post where we'll take you to one of the highest points in Jinan for views of the city!Lazily adlibing the bubbling Springs.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Days 114-122 - Staying put in Jinan to avoid the Golden Week rush
The first week of October is National Week in China, which results in 1.3 billion people travelling around the country and celebrating with their friends and families. As we like to adlib our way around China, we don't tend to plan in advance, but during Golden Week planning is essential - hence our plans to stay put (due to lack of any other options!).
However staying put turned out to be rather perfect. Even though we have been in Jinan for a month, we have only really had brief expeditions out and about our new city. So, this week was spent exploring and finding the best places to eat, shop and enjoy ourselves for the next 8 months.
One of our first accomplishments was finding the cheap dvd store where we stocked up with way too many dvds, which eventually resulted in a few too many hours at home in front of the tv instead of being immersed in the golden week crowds. However, at NZ$1 per dvd, can you really blame us for catching up on English movies after three months of being subjected to Chinese movies on our many bus trips across the country?!
Despite numerous trips to this small bustling street, we are not even close to sampling every restaurant or food stall, so we foresee many future trips to indulge our taste buds there. In fact, Adam has even made a friend along this street, who happens to be there every time we go, he's even invited Adam to meet his warrior friends next time we're in Xi'an. 
This week there were more markets and ad hoc stalls downtown that we had to battle our way through on each excursion. Add to this the droves of people who cluster together - at some points it feels like the whole group is moving you, instead of yourself leading your own way. On one occasion, Adam knew where he wanted to go and what he wanted to buy (running shoes) but found himself frustrated when the sales lady paid him no attention because she could made multiple sales to the Chinese people around her, instead of dealing with the single laowai who would just take up time! Even more frustrating was the fact that her store was only full of people coming to see what the foreigners were buying (well, that's what it felt like to us)! After filling ourselves up along the food street, we returned to her shop and seeing it empty we scurried in, made the purchase and made a break for home! With running shoes now in hand, it wasn't long before Adam had them strapped to his feet and he was on his way bounding along the mountain tracks behind campus.
Sticking to the food and beverage theme of our holiday, on Wednesday we treated ourselves to a scrumptious Indian dinner with Dovid at the Jasmine Restaurant, a place we also foresee ourselves visiting a fair few times during our time in Jinan. After our dinner we made our way along to the Muslim Quarter where the foreign teachers meet at Wei Weis to begin the weekly ritual of drinking the place dry!
One of our favourite days during our week off was spent just wandering through downtown and adlibing our way along the riverside. The great thing about the rivers in Jinan is that they are fed by the numerous springs (about 70 in total), which means they are almost crystal clear - this is practically unknown in China outside of rural villages! As dusk fell we ventured up a war monument called Liberty Building (the only remaining piece of the old city wall) that graces the riverside, which provided spectacular views of the river and city below - it also provided Adam with something to climb.
As the week wore on it became colder and colder, and many days were fogged out with pollution and drizzle, which acted as further impetus to stay at home in front of the tv! However, on the odd occasion when it was clear we made a mad dash in the name of exploration. On one such occasion we found ourselves surrounded by the trees small lakes at Jinan's botanical gardens. Here we sat reading our English newspapers (the first time we had managed to located some here) and eating the baked kumara we had purchased from the street vendor along the way. 
It's a nice feeling finally getting to know our city - where the buses start and stop, and where the major attractions in Jinan are. So when we decided to go to Da Ming Hu (Daming Lake), it was a stress free trip there. The lake itself was pretty and we spent a good few hours exploring the pleasant surroundings - we even saw people relaxing on the grass, with no signs forbidding it in sight, this is a very unusual occurrence!! 
Put a big bell in front of Adam and you know what will happen ...
We enjoyed a fried egg delicacy, where mini eggs from unknown hosts are fried on a skewer and covered in spices. Mmmm, mmmm.
At the lake we also had our first experience of random Chinese people asking to have a photo taken with us, instead of trying to look subtle and taking them of us from a distance!
During the week we explored the mountains around our campus, where we get great views of campus and the surrounding suburbs - well, when the pollution doesn't block the view! Our first walk led us to the top of cliff behind campus, where we ambled amongst the multicoloured foliage, and stumbled or way along unsteady, rocky paths. On our next trip we began by walking along relatively clear paths that soon disappeared and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a cemetery - if this wasn't freaky enough, even more strange were the massive piles of dirt, which made us question whether graves were actually dug?! Despite the questionable site of our hike, we were rewarded with an informative view of the city - on one side of the mountains are factories who are barely visible below the pollution that bellow out from them, on the other are complete neighbourhoods that have been demolished down to nothing but piles of bricks to make room for new subdivisions. Around the corner, we watched the quarry below us in action, as diggers and bulldozers bashed down the mountains in order to provide land for the masses.
Adlibing Jinan to see what we can find.
However staying put turned out to be rather perfect. Even though we have been in Jinan for a month, we have only really had brief expeditions out and about our new city. So, this week was spent exploring and finding the best places to eat, shop and enjoy ourselves for the next 8 months.
One of our first accomplishments was finding the cheap dvd store where we stocked up with way too many dvds, which eventually resulted in a few too many hours at home in front of the tv instead of being immersed in the golden week crowds. However, at NZ$1 per dvd, can you really blame us for catching up on English movies after three months of being subjected to Chinese movies on our many bus trips across the country?!
We also made it back to the huge markets, without a student entourage, where we literally shopped till we dropped. Luckily there were street vendors selling egg and vege pancakes to sustain us while we purchased our way to a new wardrobe full of clothes and shoes. Even though we were there for almost the whole day (minus the 2 hours it took us to get there) we only really managed to wander the shoe market and a small section of the huge clothes market - at some point you have to admit you can't walk or shop anymore! Plus we still had 2 hours worth of bus rides home!
After being at school for almost a month we finally managed to walk up the hill behind us, where we got some cool views of uni, the surrounding hills, and the little suburb below us - the only catch was having to steer our way through a thin layer of smog ... 
During the week we made many stops along what we have nicknamed "the food street" (not very original, we know), breaking up our day of shopping and exploring with a delicious and cheap meal for lunch / dinner.
During the week we made many stops along what we have nicknamed "the food street" (not very original, we know), breaking up our day of shopping and exploring with a delicious and cheap meal for lunch / dinner. Despite numerous trips to this small bustling street, we are not even close to sampling every restaurant or food stall, so we foresee many future trips to indulge our taste buds there. In fact, Adam has even made a friend along this street, who happens to be there every time we go, he's even invited Adam to meet his warrior friends next time we're in Xi'an. This week there were more markets and ad hoc stalls downtown that we had to battle our way through on each excursion. Add to this the droves of people who cluster together - at some points it feels like the whole group is moving you, instead of yourself leading your own way. On one occasion, Adam knew where he wanted to go and what he wanted to buy (running shoes) but found himself frustrated when the sales lady paid him no attention because she could made multiple sales to the Chinese people around her, instead of dealing with the single laowai who would just take up time! Even more frustrating was the fact that her store was only full of people coming to see what the foreigners were buying (well, that's what it felt like to us)! After filling ourselves up along the food street, we returned to her shop and seeing it empty we scurried in, made the purchase and made a break for home! With running shoes now in hand, it wasn't long before Adam had them strapped to his feet and he was on his way bounding along the mountain tracks behind campus.Sticking to the food and beverage theme of our holiday, on Wednesday we treated ourselves to a scrumptious Indian dinner with Dovid at the Jasmine Restaurant, a place we also foresee ourselves visiting a fair few times during our time in Jinan. After our dinner we made our way along to the Muslim Quarter where the foreign teachers meet at Wei Weis to begin the weekly ritual of drinking the place dry!
One of our favourite days during our week off was spent just wandering through downtown and adlibing our way along the riverside. The great thing about the rivers in Jinan is that they are fed by the numerous springs (about 70 in total), which means they are almost crystal clear - this is practically unknown in China outside of rural villages! As dusk fell we ventured up a war monument called Liberty Building (the only remaining piece of the old city wall) that graces the riverside, which provided spectacular views of the river and city below - it also provided Adam with something to climb.
As the week wore on it became colder and colder, and many days were fogged out with pollution and drizzle, which acted as further impetus to stay at home in front of the tv! However, on the odd occasion when it was clear we made a mad dash in the name of exploration. On one such occasion we found ourselves surrounded by the trees small lakes at Jinan's botanical gardens. Here we sat reading our English newspapers (the first time we had managed to located some here) and eating the baked kumara we had purchased from the street vendor along the way. It's a nice feeling finally getting to know our city - where the buses start and stop, and where the major attractions in Jinan are. So when we decided to go to Da Ming Hu (Daming Lake), it was a stress free trip there. The lake itself was pretty and we spent a good few hours exploring the pleasant surroundings - we even saw people relaxing on the grass, with no signs forbidding it in sight, this is a very unusual occurrence!! Put a big bell in front of Adam and you know what will happen ...We enjoyed a fried egg delicacy, where mini eggs from unknown hosts are fried on a skewer and covered in spices. Mmmm, mmmm. At the lake we also had our first experience of random Chinese people asking to have a photo taken with us, instead of trying to look subtle and taking them of us from a distance!During the week we explored the mountains around our campus, where we get great views of campus and the surrounding suburbs - well, when the pollution doesn't block the view! Our first walk led us to the top of cliff behind campus, where we ambled amongst the multicoloured foliage, and stumbled or way along unsteady, rocky paths. On our next trip we began by walking along relatively clear paths that soon disappeared and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a cemetery - if this wasn't freaky enough, even more strange were the massive piles of dirt, which made us question whether graves were actually dug?! Despite the questionable site of our hike, we were rewarded with an informative view of the city - on one side of the mountains are factories who are barely visible below the pollution that bellow out from them, on the other are complete neighbourhoods that have been demolished down to nothing but piles of bricks to make room for new subdivisions. Around the corner, we watched the quarry below us in action, as diggers and bulldozers bashed down the mountains in order to provide land for the masses.
Adlibing Jinan to see what we can find.Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Days 102-113 - Making it to the end of teaching week three!
Although we admit that the teaching profession is a noble one, we are finding that repeating the same 2-hour lesson six times does not exactly make for a thrilling teaching week. However, as we have previously said, some students make our experience very rewarding - over the past couple of weeks we have both received gifts (moon cakes) from several students to mark Moon Day celebrations. 
These gifts were accompanined with stories to inform the foreigners about one of the many unique celebrations in China. Liv also got a beautiful paper cutting from a student as a thanks for help outside of class - which is awesome as Liv has had her eye on buying a paper cutting since arriving in China.
Since we can't always rely on gifts to break the monotony of teaching it is lucky that we live in China where the world around us is all very new and exciting, meaning that outside of class there are many things to keep us entertained - and trust us there are a lot of entertaining things about the place! Such things tend to pop up out of nowhere, which makes for more fun and laughter on our part!
Waking at 6am on Monday morning to the sounds of new army trainees practising their drills outside our window, we laughed off our early wakeup call as a once off. When we were woken in the exact same manner for the next two weeks (even during the weekends) the humour quickly faded.
The most memorable event of the past few weeks happened on campus as we were heading home after a day of teaching. Out of nowhere a security van zoomed past us and came to a tyre-screeching halt, before a pile of heavily armed personel exited the van as if they were on a military exercise, only to burst the illusion by calling out to the two foreigners (us!) "helloooo". A little surprised and not wanting to take a bullet for the country we returned the pleasantries and continued on our way. Everywhere we go people are constantly calling out "helllooooo", but shy away giggling if we dare to reply or attempt to take the conversation further.
Almost daily we jam ourselves onto the already sardine-tin packed bus for our trips to town, but normally the bus driver will refuse more passengers at a point. However on some occassions the physics of maximal capacity doesn't apply as more and more passengers pile on the already overflowing bus. On one occasion when we were already packed on so tight we didn't even have to hold onto anything, even more people climbed aboard, leaving the bus so full the door couldn't close and the poor people were hanging on for their lives, so as to not fall out! However, the real adventure is when we have to try and scramble our way out of the bus before the bus driver loses patience - this task is even more difficult when carrying mulitple bags of shopping.
During one trip into town we stumbled across the night markets in the middle of downtown, where we spent almost 2 hours wandering the stalls of what will now be our local market. The markets were filled with the wonderful aromas drifting from the foodstalls, which we will enjoy on our next mission there. However, our first experience here was all about shopping and we walked away with clothes, glasses, belts and new jandals for Adam! The only problem is that we were ever conscious of the fact that the last bus back was at 9pm - if we miss the bus the cost of getting home goes from 2 yuan by bus to about 30 yuan by taxi.
The day after the markets we were finally taken to the visa office to get our working visas, and we were ecstatic to find out that they last through to the middle of September giving us a couple of months to adlib more of China after work. The trip to the visa office couldn't have come sooner as our travel visas were due to expire that very weekend, and we were getting a little worried about the hefty fines and deportation issues that come with being overstayers! After our previous experience with getting Chinese visas we were prepared for the inevitable wait at the visa office, however our boss who had accompanied us was clearly not prepared for the over 3 hour wait! The very slow 3 hours was rewarded with a delicious lunch at an old, traditional Chinese restaurant, where it was wonderful having a local do the ordering. In true Chinese fashion much more food than needed was ordered meaning Adam got a doggybag full of goodies to take home!
Our third Saturday in Jinan was spent with students who took us around more of the shopping sites of Jinan. Our first port of call was the skate shop were Adam spent hours deciding on a wicked new skateboard setup. Then our student guides took us out to lunch ordering again a feast that we couldn't finish. Before long we were headed on a doubledecker bus towards the huge markets that sell almost everything! Although we set out with the aim of returning with a new wardrobe, the enthusiasm our students displayed at the skateboard store quickly diminished amongst the skirts and jeans! Sparing the students some misery we headed back home, vowing to return on our own with a wallet packed full of Maos (cash!).
Liv's committment to her students was very evident last Wednesday, as she spent the evening helping out one of her most dedicated students, while Adam headed into town with Dovid. Every Wednesday night foreign teachers from different universities and schools throughout Jinan get together at Wei Weis for a feed and beer. Wei Weis is located on the Muslim street that is dotted with 2-metre long bbqs where seafood, meat, and vege kebabs are cooked on the spot! While Liv got an early night to bed, Adam finally made it to a Chinese bar (a nice change from buying beer on the street, although it cost him 5 times as much) and partied the night away with his new friends returning in the wee hours of the morning ...
One of our hightlights over the past two weeks has been putting our webcam and headset into action as we finally got skype set up! We have since spent the majority of our time skyping the hours away - seeing our family for the first time in months is wonderful, hopefully they don't get sick of seeing us! Just got to get mum and dad techniphobics online with skype now ...
The first of October is National Day in China, and this is commemorated with a week long holiday, which we welcome with open arms as a break from teaching and a chance to really explore our new home.
The adlibers survive to the holidays.
These gifts were accompanined with stories to inform the foreigners about one of the many unique celebrations in China. Liv also got a beautiful paper cutting from a student as a thanks for help outside of class - which is awesome as Liv has had her eye on buying a paper cutting since arriving in China.Since we can't always rely on gifts to break the monotony of teaching it is lucky that we live in China where the world around us is all very new and exciting, meaning that outside of class there are many things to keep us entertained - and trust us there are a lot of entertaining things about the place! Such things tend to pop up out of nowhere, which makes for more fun and laughter on our part!Waking at 6am on Monday morning to the sounds of new army trainees practising their drills outside our window, we laughed off our early wakeup call as a once off. When we were woken in the exact same manner for the next two weeks (even during the weekends) the humour quickly faded.
The most memorable event of the past few weeks happened on campus as we were heading home after a day of teaching. Out of nowhere a security van zoomed past us and came to a tyre-screeching halt, before a pile of heavily armed personel exited the van as if they were on a military exercise, only to burst the illusion by calling out to the two foreigners (us!) "helloooo". A little surprised and not wanting to take a bullet for the country we returned the pleasantries and continued on our way. Everywhere we go people are constantly calling out "helllooooo", but shy away giggling if we dare to reply or attempt to take the conversation further.
Almost daily we jam ourselves onto the already sardine-tin packed bus for our trips to town, but normally the bus driver will refuse more passengers at a point. However on some occassions the physics of maximal capacity doesn't apply as more and more passengers pile on the already overflowing bus. On one occasion when we were already packed on so tight we didn't even have to hold onto anything, even more people climbed aboard, leaving the bus so full the door couldn't close and the poor people were hanging on for their lives, so as to not fall out! However, the real adventure is when we have to try and scramble our way out of the bus before the bus driver loses patience - this task is even more difficult when carrying mulitple bags of shopping.
During one trip into town we stumbled across the night markets in the middle of downtown, where we spent almost 2 hours wandering the stalls of what will now be our local market. The markets were filled with the wonderful aromas drifting from the foodstalls, which we will enjoy on our next mission there. However, our first experience here was all about shopping and we walked away with clothes, glasses, belts and new jandals for Adam! The only problem is that we were ever conscious of the fact that the last bus back was at 9pm - if we miss the bus the cost of getting home goes from 2 yuan by bus to about 30 yuan by taxi.
The day after the markets we were finally taken to the visa office to get our working visas, and we were ecstatic to find out that they last through to the middle of September giving us a couple of months to adlib more of China after work. The trip to the visa office couldn't have come sooner as our travel visas were due to expire that very weekend, and we were getting a little worried about the hefty fines and deportation issues that come with being overstayers! After our previous experience with getting Chinese visas we were prepared for the inevitable wait at the visa office, however our boss who had accompanied us was clearly not prepared for the over 3 hour wait! The very slow 3 hours was rewarded with a delicious lunch at an old, traditional Chinese restaurant, where it was wonderful having a local do the ordering. In true Chinese fashion much more food than needed was ordered meaning Adam got a doggybag full of goodies to take home!
Our third Saturday in Jinan was spent with students who took us around more of the shopping sites of Jinan. Our first port of call was the skate shop were Adam spent hours deciding on a wicked new skateboard setup. Then our student guides took us out to lunch ordering again a feast that we couldn't finish. Before long we were headed on a doubledecker bus towards the huge markets that sell almost everything! Although we set out with the aim of returning with a new wardrobe, the enthusiasm our students displayed at the skateboard store quickly diminished amongst the skirts and jeans! Sparing the students some misery we headed back home, vowing to return on our own with a wallet packed full of Maos (cash!).
Liv's committment to her students was very evident last Wednesday, as she spent the evening helping out one of her most dedicated students, while Adam headed into town with Dovid. Every Wednesday night foreign teachers from different universities and schools throughout Jinan get together at Wei Weis for a feed and beer. Wei Weis is located on the Muslim street that is dotted with 2-metre long bbqs where seafood, meat, and vege kebabs are cooked on the spot! While Liv got an early night to bed, Adam finally made it to a Chinese bar (a nice change from buying beer on the street, although it cost him 5 times as much) and partied the night away with his new friends returning in the wee hours of the morning ...
One of our hightlights over the past two weeks has been putting our webcam and headset into action as we finally got skype set up! We have since spent the majority of our time skyping the hours away - seeing our family for the first time in months is wonderful, hopefully they don't get sick of seeing us! Just got to get mum and dad techniphobics online with skype now ...
The first of October is National Day in China, and this is commemorated with a week long holiday, which we welcome with open arms as a break from teaching and a chance to really explore our new home.
The adlibers survive to the holidays.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Days 95-101 – Our first working week …
After three months of continuous travelling, we have to ditch our adlibing ways and begin our life of planning and preparation as we enter into the working world once more. Though we are officially titled “Foreign Experts”, we still struggle to think of ourselves as university teachers and feel our role is more similar to that of a tutor. 
Being on the teaching end of class has taught us a few lessons – the main ones being that we now understand why teachers have teacher’s pets and that teaching is as much a motivational challenge as it is about passing on knowledge. While teaching isn’t difficult itself, it is extremely draining – and of course there is the preparation that goes on outside out paid hours.
The advantages in relation to school include the fact that our schedules are identical, which means we have all our spare time off together, and that we teach the same level and can thus prepare for classes together.
Our students are second year students attempting to prepare themselves for attending Canadian Universities for the final two years of their study – it is our role to prepare them for the test they need to pass to get into international universities. So after saying goodbye to our university studies, we now have textbooks in our possession once more.
The first week of teaching was full of up and downs – the students who try in class reward our efforts, while those who couldn't care less leave us frustrated. Some students are clearly ready for their overseas experience, while others will get a harsh reality check once they arrive in Canada (if they make it).
Mondays and Wednesdays are both 8-hour days with an 8am start and a 6pm finish – the only saviour is the 2 hour lunch break between the four 2-hour classes. Basically we just try our hardest to survive these days but still provide the last class with at least an ounce of enthusiasm.
Tuesdays and Fridays are our 4-hour days, and we get to relax/plan classes on our day off on Thursdays! The weekends are true weekends, where we have time to ourselves to do our own thing in our way, except for late Sunday night when we enter cram mode in preparation for the week’s lessons. The excellent thing about our Friday classes, is that we have the ability to have the four hours jammed into Tuesdays, giving us a four day weekend to adlib our way around the China we haven’t seen yet.
After living in permanent weekend mode for months on end, where days were just numbers to us, our first ‘weekend’ (as in, a break from the working week) couldn’t come too soon! It seems we had adapted to the “do what you what when you want” way of living with ease, and now have to somehow struggle our way back into our new working life of schedules and class plans.
So when Saturday arrived we spent our time in similar fashion to the prologue week, by exploring the town and indulging in some shopping along the way. On Thursday we had attempted to go shopping, but ended up at a huge and expensive mall underneath the City Square (the Silver Plaza), which had just reopened after falling victim to the massive floods that wrecked havoc on the Chinese population. The same floods also wrecked havoc on our minds during our travels as we watched future destinations of ours feature in the news (underwater). As the prices in the Silver Plaza were comparable to prices at home, we had left empty handed with that feeling you get after setting out to spend money but not finding anything to buy!
For our second attempt at shopping, we armed ourselves with one of our students who was keen to practice his English. This resulted in an informative tour of shopping and eating spots around town, and seven hours later we returned home with bags full of goodies! Our main purchases for the day were computer-based accessories, and once the University fixes the internet (again) we’re geared and ready to skype our friends and family!
Sunday was pretty chilled – we started the day preparing for lessons and then made a brief foray to explore a market we’d passed on our regular bus trips, only a few purchases but we’ll be sure to return!
Adlibing it into the working world.
Being on the teaching end of class has taught us a few lessons – the main ones being that we now understand why teachers have teacher’s pets and that teaching is as much a motivational challenge as it is about passing on knowledge. While teaching isn’t difficult itself, it is extremely draining – and of course there is the preparation that goes on outside out paid hours.The advantages in relation to school include the fact that our schedules are identical, which means we have all our spare time off together, and that we teach the same level and can thus prepare for classes together.
Our students are second year students attempting to prepare themselves for attending Canadian Universities for the final two years of their study – it is our role to prepare them for the test they need to pass to get into international universities. So after saying goodbye to our university studies, we now have textbooks in our possession once more.
The first week of teaching was full of up and downs – the students who try in class reward our efforts, while those who couldn't care less leave us frustrated. Some students are clearly ready for their overseas experience, while others will get a harsh reality check once they arrive in Canada (if they make it).
Mondays and Wednesdays are both 8-hour days with an 8am start and a 6pm finish – the only saviour is the 2 hour lunch break between the four 2-hour classes. Basically we just try our hardest to survive these days but still provide the last class with at least an ounce of enthusiasm.
Tuesdays and Fridays are our 4-hour days, and we get to relax/plan classes on our day off on Thursdays! The weekends are true weekends, where we have time to ourselves to do our own thing in our way, except for late Sunday night when we enter cram mode in preparation for the week’s lessons. The excellent thing about our Friday classes, is that we have the ability to have the four hours jammed into Tuesdays, giving us a four day weekend to adlib our way around the China we haven’t seen yet.
After living in permanent weekend mode for months on end, where days were just numbers to us, our first ‘weekend’ (as in, a break from the working week) couldn’t come too soon! It seems we had adapted to the “do what you what when you want” way of living with ease, and now have to somehow struggle our way back into our new working life of schedules and class plans.
So when Saturday arrived we spent our time in similar fashion to the prologue week, by exploring the town and indulging in some shopping along the way. On Thursday we had attempted to go shopping, but ended up at a huge and expensive mall underneath the City Square (the Silver Plaza), which had just reopened after falling victim to the massive floods that wrecked havoc on the Chinese population. The same floods also wrecked havoc on our minds during our travels as we watched future destinations of ours feature in the news (underwater). As the prices in the Silver Plaza were comparable to prices at home, we had left empty handed with that feeling you get after setting out to spend money but not finding anything to buy!
For our second attempt at shopping, we armed ourselves with one of our students who was keen to practice his English. This resulted in an informative tour of shopping and eating spots around town, and seven hours later we returned home with bags full of goodies! Our main purchases for the day were computer-based accessories, and once the University fixes the internet (again) we’re geared and ready to skype our friends and family!
Sunday was pretty chilled – we started the day preparing for lessons and then made a brief foray to explore a market we’d passed on our regular bus trips, only a few purchases but we’ll be sure to return!
Adlibing it into the working world.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Days 89-94 - A prologue to teaching
Jinan is the capital city of Shandong Province, a wealthy coastal province South of Beijing and North of Shanghai. The most famous draw card in Jinan are its Springs (Jinan is known as the City of Springs), but apart from that there are no real tourist attractions – this suits us fine though as we will adlib our way around the town and seek out our own sights and formulate our own opinions of the place! “Shandong” itself means “East of the Mountain”, which we think is very fitting considering the amount of mountains around us. The Yellow River (Huang He), which starts in Tibet, ends its journey in Shandong, reaching the sea in the North of the Province. As well as being famous as the hometown of Confucius, Shandong is also home to the most holy of the 5 sacred mountains in China – Tai Shan, which we will summit one of these days …
Our arrival in Jinan was brilliant - firstly because we were picked up directly off the train station platform by our boss-to-be and driven through town where we got a glimpse of our home for the next 9 months. Secondly our arrival at the campus where we will be living and teaching was a lovely surprise, as it is located in the suburbs out of the hustle and buslte of town and surrounded by hills - the sun was even shining and the blue sky looking down upon us - what a welcome! Finally the news we had been waiting for: our 9kgs of important and valuable gear that we sent months ago had arrived and was ready waiting for us!!
Without further ado we were taken to our dormitory (we like to call it our apartment, as that is what it is like). We have 2 bedrooms, one with a sunroom/drying room off it, a large living area with comfy couches, TV, DVD player, fridge and microwave (they don't fit in the kitchen!), and a welcome airconditioner (thank goodness). Off the living area is our kitchen (complete with washing machine!) and a bathroom.
The only problem with the kitchen is that the 2-top gas stove doesn't work because the university refuses to allow foreign teachers to connect to the gas line! This problem was solved when we went to the supermarket the next day and purchased a rice cooker, jug, and an electric element.
We weren't totally sure what to expect as far as accommodation went, but we did have visions of a one room apartment with shared kitchen facilities - but the short of it is that we are pretty stoked with our new home so far.
The rest of our first day was spent receiving a campus tour from a soon to be student (Snoopy) - the campus itself is really pretty, it is the smallest of six campuses that make up Shandong University (we are based at the Software Campus). The buildings are beautiful brick constructions and house the offices, teaching rooms, sports rooms, a convenience store and a number of cafeterias (called 'restaurants', but we'll be the judge of that). Surrounding the campus are mountains, with one of them right on our back doorstep, lots of grassy areas (complete with signs telling students to keep off the grass), lots of outdoor areas with exercise equipment, and a construction sight a few hundred metres away!
After our tour and a rest we were taken to the supermarket by Snoopy and her friend Ian, where we purchased some food and cleaning products, and we enjoyed(!) washing our evening away before settling in for a rewarding Grey's Anatomy session.
Day number 2 at university we set off with Dovid (another foreign teacher here - there are only 4 of us at this campus) to another supermarket via a different bus route, increasing our knowlegde of our new hometown. Here we purchased appliances, more cleaning products, and a little more food before heading home for what would be our running theme for the rest of the week: cleaning, watching Grey's, cleaning, watching Grey's ... you get the picture. The apartment wasn't that dirty by Chinese standards, but after having not been lived in for a few months the dust and grime had built up and "if your mother won't live there, you shoudn't either", so we cleaned, and cleaned.
As well as the usual theme, on day 3 we got our contracts and had a 3-hour meeting with our bosses - this would have been a lot shorter had they not left us for large periods of time to talk amongst themselves. While we were told the contracts were the standard form contracts signed by all foreign teachers, we found some things we were unhappy with and managed to convince them to allow us to re-write a few clauses! During the meeting we found out that some teachers purely hadn't turned up for work, and we were now being asked (almost expected) to take on the extra hours. Realising we held a huge amount of negotiating power, we set about securing a computer for our apartment in return for the extra hours. When they refused, we decided that we weren't that keen for overtime, and within minutes a computer was being organised for our room!
Exhausted from the meeting we headed 10 minutes down the road to a Muslim restaurant to dine with our new teaching friend Dovid, and returned home with 2 yuan beers to fill the void in the fridge.
The number of cards in our wallets is increasing, as we now have a card we can swipe at the 'restaurants' on campus as well as the convenience store, and a card to swipe to pay for our frequent bus rides into town for shopping. These cards make life easy as we no longer have to carry around piles of one yuan notes for the bus (you must have exact change to catch buses in China). Although downtown is 40 minutes away by bus, our apartment is right on campus so it only takes us a few minutes to walk to class!
The next few days were spent getting our apartment in shape, signing the (re-written) contract, making repeat trips to the supermarket, and a LOT of Grey's watching. Finally on the night before class started we began some planning ...
This blue sculpture sits in the middle of the City Square, which is in the middle of Jinan City - a very handy orientation point!
And this is the beautiful crystal clear river that passes through the city:
Adlibing our new home.
Our arrival in Jinan was brilliant - firstly because we were picked up directly off the train station platform by our boss-to-be and driven through town where we got a glimpse of our home for the next 9 months. Secondly our arrival at the campus where we will be living and teaching was a lovely surprise, as it is located in the suburbs out of the hustle and buslte of town and surrounded by hills - the sun was even shining and the blue sky looking down upon us - what a welcome! Finally the news we had been waiting for: our 9kgs of important and valuable gear that we sent months ago had arrived and was ready waiting for us!!
Without further ado we were taken to our dormitory (we like to call it our apartment, as that is what it is like). We have 2 bedrooms, one with a sunroom/drying room off it, a large living area with comfy couches, TV, DVD player, fridge and microwave (they don't fit in the kitchen!), and a welcome airconditioner (thank goodness). Off the living area is our kitchen (complete with washing machine!) and a bathroom.
The only problem with the kitchen is that the 2-top gas stove doesn't work because the university refuses to allow foreign teachers to connect to the gas line! This problem was solved when we went to the supermarket the next day and purchased a rice cooker, jug, and an electric element.We weren't totally sure what to expect as far as accommodation went, but we did have visions of a one room apartment with shared kitchen facilities - but the short of it is that we are pretty stoked with our new home so far.
The rest of our first day was spent receiving a campus tour from a soon to be student (Snoopy) - the campus itself is really pretty, it is the smallest of six campuses that make up Shandong University (we are based at the Software Campus). The buildings are beautiful brick constructions and house the offices, teaching rooms, sports rooms, a convenience store and a number of cafeterias (called 'restaurants', but we'll be the judge of that). Surrounding the campus are mountains, with one of them right on our back doorstep, lots of grassy areas (complete with signs telling students to keep off the grass), lots of outdoor areas with exercise equipment, and a construction sight a few hundred metres away!
After our tour and a rest we were taken to the supermarket by Snoopy and her friend Ian, where we purchased some food and cleaning products, and we enjoyed(!) washing our evening away before settling in for a rewarding Grey's Anatomy session.
Day number 2 at university we set off with Dovid (another foreign teacher here - there are only 4 of us at this campus) to another supermarket via a different bus route, increasing our knowlegde of our new hometown. Here we purchased appliances, more cleaning products, and a little more food before heading home for what would be our running theme for the rest of the week: cleaning, watching Grey's, cleaning, watching Grey's ... you get the picture. The apartment wasn't that dirty by Chinese standards, but after having not been lived in for a few months the dust and grime had built up and "if your mother won't live there, you shoudn't either", so we cleaned, and cleaned.
As well as the usual theme, on day 3 we got our contracts and had a 3-hour meeting with our bosses - this would have been a lot shorter had they not left us for large periods of time to talk amongst themselves. While we were told the contracts were the standard form contracts signed by all foreign teachers, we found some things we were unhappy with and managed to convince them to allow us to re-write a few clauses! During the meeting we found out that some teachers purely hadn't turned up for work, and we were now being asked (almost expected) to take on the extra hours. Realising we held a huge amount of negotiating power, we set about securing a computer for our apartment in return for the extra hours. When they refused, we decided that we weren't that keen for overtime, and within minutes a computer was being organised for our room!
Exhausted from the meeting we headed 10 minutes down the road to a Muslim restaurant to dine with our new teaching friend Dovid, and returned home with 2 yuan beers to fill the void in the fridge.
The number of cards in our wallets is increasing, as we now have a card we can swipe at the 'restaurants' on campus as well as the convenience store, and a card to swipe to pay for our frequent bus rides into town for shopping. These cards make life easy as we no longer have to carry around piles of one yuan notes for the bus (you must have exact change to catch buses in China). Although downtown is 40 minutes away by bus, our apartment is right on campus so it only takes us a few minutes to walk to class!
The next few days were spent getting our apartment in shape, signing the (re-written) contract, making repeat trips to the supermarket, and a LOT of Grey's watching. Finally on the night before class started we began some planning ...
This blue sculpture sits in the middle of the City Square, which is in the middle of Jinan City - a very handy orientation point!
And this is the beautiful crystal clear river that passes through the city:Adlibing our new home.
Day 88 - Last day of freedom
In preparation for going to Jinan tonight, we spent the morning undertaking the normally despised task of packing, planning and preparing ourselves for our next destination. However, this packing mission was attacked with enthusiasm as it will be the last time, for a long time, that we have to go through these motions. Even better we know that once we arrive in Jinan someone will be at the train station to pick us up, meaning that we won't have to lose ourselves in the masses and figure out how to get to somewhere with a bed.
After the packing we headed out for one last adlibing adventure, which led us to the Suzhou Silk Museum. Our Lonely Planet had told us this was a must-see, and since Suzhou has a 4,000 year history of silk production, we thought we'd better stop by. However the museum consisted of mainly replicas of ancient silk, and apart from getting to watch silk worms eating mulberry leaves, we left disappointed.
So in search of something exciting to do on our last day we headed out into the rain - our destination being a pedestrian shopping street that houses a Taoist Temple - The Temple of Mystery. The bazaar area surrounding the temple was once home to travelling showmen and acrobats, but all we found was the normal hawkers selling knock-off handbags, sunglasses and belts. Nonetheless the markets were located in a beautiful setting with the temple smack-bang in the middle, and we enjoyed our hour and a half wander through them. 
As the rain intensified we hopped on a bus to take us back to the hostel. However, after spending half an hour barely moving, we opted to sacrifice our 2 yuan ticket and walk back - we ended up beating the bus and were relieved to escape the sardine tin bus, and the smell that comes with wet people in the summer.
With a few hours to spare we decided to break away from the adlibing budget and spend up large, before we start earning in Chinese yuan - so we treated ourselves to a delicious Italian meal for dinner and spent some time reflecting on our wonderful three months on the road through China. This dining experience was the first time we have dined in a restaurant where the patrons were 100% foreigners! Although the meal was a fantastic change, it cost us 10 times more than our usual meals, and left us just as satisfied.
Mounting our packs we boarded the ever familiar public bus for our journey to the train station, where we settled into our ever familiar role as the station-spectacle and after waving to or 'fans' we sat down and read our way through the hour until the train arrived.
As it was already almost 10pm when the train arrived, we off-loaded our weighty friends and set about reading ourselves to sleep in our luxurious soft-sleeper cabin for our last night of freedom. Our cabin even had a door to keep out the noise and the smell of urine drifting from the toilets, AND we could sit up in our beds as there were only 4 bunks in the room instead of 6!!
Adlibing our way to a new home.
After the packing we headed out for one last adlibing adventure, which led us to the Suzhou Silk Museum. Our Lonely Planet had told us this was a must-see, and since Suzhou has a 4,000 year history of silk production, we thought we'd better stop by. However the museum consisted of mainly replicas of ancient silk, and apart from getting to watch silk worms eating mulberry leaves, we left disappointed.
So in search of something exciting to do on our last day we headed out into the rain - our destination being a pedestrian shopping street that houses a Taoist Temple - The Temple of Mystery. The bazaar area surrounding the temple was once home to travelling showmen and acrobats, but all we found was the normal hawkers selling knock-off handbags, sunglasses and belts. Nonetheless the markets were located in a beautiful setting with the temple smack-bang in the middle, and we enjoyed our hour and a half wander through them. As the rain intensified we hopped on a bus to take us back to the hostel. However, after spending half an hour barely moving, we opted to sacrifice our 2 yuan ticket and walk back - we ended up beating the bus and were relieved to escape the sardine tin bus, and the smell that comes with wet people in the summer.With a few hours to spare we decided to break away from the adlibing budget and spend up large, before we start earning in Chinese yuan - so we treated ourselves to a delicious Italian meal for dinner and spent some time reflecting on our wonderful three months on the road through China. This dining experience was the first time we have dined in a restaurant where the patrons were 100% foreigners! Although the meal was a fantastic change, it cost us 10 times more than our usual meals, and left us just as satisfied.
Mounting our packs we boarded the ever familiar public bus for our journey to the train station, where we settled into our ever familiar role as the station-spectacle and after waving to or 'fans' we sat down and read our way through the hour until the train arrived.
As it was already almost 10pm when the train arrived, we off-loaded our weighty friends and set about reading ourselves to sleep in our luxurious soft-sleeper cabin for our last night of freedom. Our cabin even had a door to keep out the noise and the smell of urine drifting from the toilets, AND we could sit up in our beds as there were only 4 bunks in the room instead of 6!!
Adlibing our way to a new home.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Day 87 - Wandering the sights of Suzhou
After the dramas we encountered with buses yesterday, we decided to tackle today by foot. Our first port of call for the day was The Master of Nets Garden (we figured we couldn't leave Suzhou without visiting one of the gardens it is famous for), which was beautiful, but to be honest, not that much different from the other gardens we have visited in China. The good thing about this particular garden is that it was small enough that we could see all of it and not feel like we missed something.
After this we got ourselves lost while searching for the Pingtan Museum, however in our lost state we journeyed along Pingjiang Road, which is a cobblestone path that follows one of the city's canals, and got to enjoy the local scenes (while dodging scooters and bicycles!). Perched along both sides of the canal are the slowly deteriorating houses of the locals who go happily about their lives, while tourists mill amongst them. 
We eventually came across an interesting building we thought we'd explore, only to find out that we had actually found the Museum we had been searching for - it's great that a completely adlibed path can succeed as if you were following a map. The Pingtan Museum is really just a theatre in a beautiful old building, where Pingtan shows of singing and storytelling are performed daily - and we had timed our visit perfectly as a show was due to begin half an hour after we arrived.
After being seated at the back (fine by us as this minimises the eyes on us and keeps them focused on the show) and given our cups of tea, we waited patiently for the show to begin. These shows are a very social occasion, although clearly for the older generation - we were out-aged by at least 50 years! We didn't mind the age gap though as our fellow theatre-goers showed extreme kindness to us and welcomed us warmly.
The first man who approached us was slightly taken aback when his comment was understood and replied to in Chinese - though he was also clearly appreciative of our effort. Before long we had a steady stream of visitors, most proclaiming "they won't understand anything" - only for us to be defended by our friends saying "they do understand!". One man happily wandered over to us to explain that he had seen us (the bearded one and his girl) as he rode to his favourite theatre on his bike. The expression on his face illustrated that this conversation might be the highlight of his day. Eventually people told us what we already knew - that this show would be performed in the Suzhou dialect, different to Putonghua that we can semi-understand - and we all laughed together about the fact that we would understand very little, if anything at all!
The storyline completely alluded us, but at one time we were sure the joke that had the audience in hysterics was to do with the size of the male character's family jewels. We basically spent the show enjoying the changing tone of the actors voices, and their ever varying facial expressions, as well as listening to the musical pieces of the show - quite unlike anything you'll hear on MTV! We were stoked that the shrillness of the famous Peking Operas were absent from this show!
After the two hour performance and many cups of tea (all for 80 cents each) we headed for lunch as it was already 3.30pm. We ended up at another Muslim restaurant which we love - the meals tend to have more flavour and variety than other street kitchens - thus our noodle dishes threw a curve ball at our stomachs that are used to the usual grease and soya sauce flavoured noodles.
Back on foot patrol we enjoyed getting to really see Suzhou town as we headed for the North Temple Pagoda - the tallest pagoda south of the Yangzi at nine stories high and adjacent to a 1700 year old temple, which turned out to be one of the most relaxing and enjoying complexes we have been to in a long time. It was especially enjoyable as most of the tourists were headed away just as we were arriving. After gazing up at the height of the pagoda, it was thrilling to know that we were going to get to climb the biggest pagoda we have seen so far! The lack of tourists while climbing the pagoda was very welcome as the staircases were very narrow and it meant we got a clear run to the top, rather than waiting in line like we're used to! If you look really close you can see Liv hanging out the third window.
At the top we got sweeping view of the city, and despite it being a clear-ish day, the skyline in the distance was still battling to break through the smog. The battle between sky and smog is a continuous one in China, and with the huge coal towers burning 24/7 it's no surprise that the latter is winning. From all the way at the top, the pagoda seemed even higher than it did from below and had there been any tourists in the complex they would have looked like ants - and we looked forward to enjoying the temple and its surrounds in peace. With all the tourrist gone it was easy for Adam to slip under a fenced of area and get up close and personal with Buddha. 
Back down on level ground we spent the next hour wandering through the temple grounds, and although we've seen many gardens and temple this one was a nice change, due to its simplicity - straying away from the maze of pavilions, alleyways and rock sculptures of many others. Making our way to the exit, we were sidetracked by a roaming white rabbit, which was incredibly friendly and easy around us - letting us pat it and feed it by hand. This is a perfect example of when you treat an animal with kindness it has no reason to fear you or anyone else - kind of like the dogs here that roam the streets with natural freedom and cause no one harm, in contrast to the environment in NZ where fences sometimes aren't enough to keep savage dogs out of sight (or out of trouble). 
Nipping between the closing gates of the complex we were so enjoying, we continued our foot march with dedicated steps towards the markets - determined we would find them tonight! After less than half and hour of wandering, it seemed like this determination had failed as we arrived in the exact same place we had searched in vain for the markets last night. However, with a stroke of fate Liv read a neon hotel sign with the character for the street we were looking for on it. Soon we had a semi direction to head towards, though it took us another half hour of searching through handbag stores and watching a watershow for us to finally locate the elusive markets.
At the markets we set about a frenzied shopping spree, with the knowledge that we only have to lug our packs around for one more day - as well as knowing that travel clothes probably won't do at work. At the end of our night Adam had purchased a pair of trousers that are a mix between 'good' work pants and kick ass grandpa pants (of course 5 sizes too big, according to Liv). Liv walked away with a pair of cool jeans and a handbag that made denying all the other handbags on offer over the last three months worth while (though she's still keeping the bag from mumbles that connects her to home, even though it's broken!).
After finding dumplings for dinner and a McD's ice cream for dessert, we congratulated ourselves when we found the bus we needed to catch by pure happenstance! Ice cold beer in hand we relaxed our last travelling evening away trying to wear off some of the excitement of a great day but the end of a wonderful adlibed tour, well for now, that is ...
Adlibing the night markets, eventually.
After this we got ourselves lost while searching for the Pingtan Museum, however in our lost state we journeyed along Pingjiang Road, which is a cobblestone path that follows one of the city's canals, and got to enjoy the local scenes (while dodging scooters and bicycles!). Perched along both sides of the canal are the slowly deteriorating houses of the locals who go happily about their lives, while tourists mill amongst them. We eventually came across an interesting building we thought we'd explore, only to find out that we had actually found the Museum we had been searching for - it's great that a completely adlibed path can succeed as if you were following a map. The Pingtan Museum is really just a theatre in a beautiful old building, where Pingtan shows of singing and storytelling are performed daily - and we had timed our visit perfectly as a show was due to begin half an hour after we arrived.After being seated at the back (fine by us as this minimises the eyes on us and keeps them focused on the show) and given our cups of tea, we waited patiently for the show to begin. These shows are a very social occasion, although clearly for the older generation - we were out-aged by at least 50 years! We didn't mind the age gap though as our fellow theatre-goers showed extreme kindness to us and welcomed us warmly.
The first man who approached us was slightly taken aback when his comment was understood and replied to in Chinese - though he was also clearly appreciative of our effort. Before long we had a steady stream of visitors, most proclaiming "they won't understand anything" - only for us to be defended by our friends saying "they do understand!". One man happily wandered over to us to explain that he had seen us (the bearded one and his girl) as he rode to his favourite theatre on his bike. The expression on his face illustrated that this conversation might be the highlight of his day. Eventually people told us what we already knew - that this show would be performed in the Suzhou dialect, different to Putonghua that we can semi-understand - and we all laughed together about the fact that we would understand very little, if anything at all!The storyline completely alluded us, but at one time we were sure the joke that had the audience in hysterics was to do with the size of the male character's family jewels. We basically spent the show enjoying the changing tone of the actors voices, and their ever varying facial expressions, as well as listening to the musical pieces of the show - quite unlike anything you'll hear on MTV! We were stoked that the shrillness of the famous Peking Operas were absent from this show!
After the two hour performance and many cups of tea (all for 80 cents each) we headed for lunch as it was already 3.30pm. We ended up at another Muslim restaurant which we love - the meals tend to have more flavour and variety than other street kitchens - thus our noodle dishes threw a curve ball at our stomachs that are used to the usual grease and soya sauce flavoured noodles.Back on foot patrol we enjoyed getting to really see Suzhou town as we headed for the North Temple Pagoda - the tallest pagoda south of the Yangzi at nine stories high and adjacent to a 1700 year old temple, which turned out to be one of the most relaxing and enjoying complexes we have been to in a long time. It was especially enjoyable as most of the tourists were headed away just as we were arriving. After gazing up at the height of the pagoda, it was thrilling to know that we were going to get to climb the biggest pagoda we have seen so far! The lack of tourists while climbing the pagoda was very welcome as the staircases were very narrow and it meant we got a clear run to the top, rather than waiting in line like we're used to! If you look really close you can see Liv hanging out the third window.
At the top we got sweeping view of the city, and despite it being a clear-ish day, the skyline in the distance was still battling to break through the smog. The battle between sky and smog is a continuous one in China, and with the huge coal towers burning 24/7 it's no surprise that the latter is winning. From all the way at the top, the pagoda seemed even higher than it did from below and had there been any tourists in the complex they would have looked like ants - and we looked forward to enjoying the temple and its surrounds in peace. With all the tourrist gone it was easy for Adam to slip under a fenced of area and get up close and personal with Buddha. Back down on level ground we spent the next hour wandering through the temple grounds, and although we've seen many gardens and temple this one was a nice change, due to its simplicity - straying away from the maze of pavilions, alleyways and rock sculptures of many others. Making our way to the exit, we were sidetracked by a roaming white rabbit, which was incredibly friendly and easy around us - letting us pat it and feed it by hand. This is a perfect example of when you treat an animal with kindness it has no reason to fear you or anyone else - kind of like the dogs here that roam the streets with natural freedom and cause no one harm, in contrast to the environment in NZ where fences sometimes aren't enough to keep savage dogs out of sight (or out of trouble). Nipping between the closing gates of the complex we were so enjoying, we continued our foot march with dedicated steps towards the markets - determined we would find them tonight! After less than half and hour of wandering, it seemed like this determination had failed as we arrived in the exact same place we had searched in vain for the markets last night. However, with a stroke of fate Liv read a neon hotel sign with the character for the street we were looking for on it. Soon we had a semi direction to head towards, though it took us another half hour of searching through handbag stores and watching a watershow for us to finally locate the elusive markets.At the markets we set about a frenzied shopping spree, with the knowledge that we only have to lug our packs around for one more day - as well as knowing that travel clothes probably won't do at work. At the end of our night Adam had purchased a pair of trousers that are a mix between 'good' work pants and kick ass grandpa pants (of course 5 sizes too big, according to Liv). Liv walked away with a pair of cool jeans and a handbag that made denying all the other handbags on offer over the last three months worth while (though she's still keeping the bag from mumbles that connects her to home, even though it's broken!).
After finding dumplings for dinner and a McD's ice cream for dessert, we congratulated ourselves when we found the bus we needed to catch by pure happenstance! Ice cold beer in hand we relaxed our last travelling evening away trying to wear off some of the excitement of a great day but the end of a wonderful adlibed tour, well for now, that is ...
Adlibing the night markets, eventually.
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