Days 298-304 - Getting locked in, denied access, and chucked out.

The only change to our normal working week was the small obstacle we had getting to class at 8am on Wednesday morning. Lately our lock on our door has been getting more and more difficult to open, but on Wednesday it decided not to open at all - so we were in fact locked in our apartment! After getting a message to our boss that we couldn't get out, she helpfully arrived at our door and proceeded to inform us that we had class - ah, duh! We did manage to get out eventually and made it to class only half an hour late. Amazingly about half of Liv's students sat around patiently waiting (as did a few of Adam's) but most of the class drifted back in once hearing we had finally arrived. Needless to say they found it very amusing that we had been locked in!

On Friday the rest of China joined us for a 3 day weekend due to Tomb Sweeping Day. This is a traditional Chinese celebration where families visit their ancestors graves to pay their respects. This resulted in the area around us being as hectic as shops at Christmas time back home, as we live nearby a cemetery. Liv had her lesson a day early and Adam headed to another nearby construction site to observe some more workers working. So while the rest of China has a holiday the construction workers don't, in fact construction sites never close even at night and in the middle of winter.

Saturday was a day of ups and downs. We set off with high hopes of visiting Long Dun (Dragon Caves) but after our taxi ride there we were informed by a soldier that foreigners are not allowed in because it is a military zone. Carol seemed to think that they didn't really do any work there, but just choose all the pretty places to hang out in. Plus, we figured it can't really be that dangerous as there were countless Chinese people wandering in and out.

This put us in one of our rare 'China Sucks' moods, but with Carol happy and willing to take us somewhere else we soon had to snap ourselves out of it! So we headed off to the Yellow River which starts its 5,464-kilometre journey in Qinghai and ends right here in Shandong. To be honest, the river itself is more brown than yellow, and there wasn't much to see - we actually felt a little resentful of having to pay to see a dirty river. This is why Carol tried to sneak us in through a hole in the fence, but unfortunately us Laowai are pretty noticeable and we got caught about 5 minutes after we got in and had to pay the $1 entrance fee - perhaps you're wondering why we didn't just pay the $1 to get in in the first place. The answer to that is that after 9 months here we're getting slightly annoyed at having to pay to see everything.

After leaving the river we headed to nearby Yao Shan (Medicine Mountain), which is really just a big hill of rocks, but we got a cool view and got to walk back through a small village. We wonder how long these little villages will remain as the city becomes more and more cosmopolitan with high rise apartment buildings taking over the landscape.

Sunday was spent like every Sunday should be - sleeping in, chilling out, and going to bed.

Campus (and the rest of Jinan actually) is looking really pretty at the moment as all the trees are blossoming, which makes a nice change from the constant grey and brown of the buildings and tree-less mountains.

Adlibing the sites of Jinan (well, the ones we're allowed to).