On Friday we (Matt, Debbie, and us) ventured off to the night markets near town, where we spent the night wandering the footpaths that had been taken over by numerous different stalls though they mainly consisted of shoes, clothes, and food. We left with a couple of new bags and T-shirts for Liv (ecstatic that something fitted for once!).
Saturday started with an early morning wake up and journey to the new campus where we joined in on a university excursion out to Lingyan Si (Lingyan Temple). This is the first free trip school has offered us, and we weren't about to turn that down! The trip began with an hour and a half drive that dropped us off at the entrance of the temple, where we were met by a guide and we commenced our first 'follow the group' tour around the temple grounds. Adam even got told off for wandering off for a few photos behind the group!!
On the tour we saw the main temples of the complex, walked past an amazing stone pagoda and a stupa forest before being given 'free-time' to walk up the mountain. 
At the top of the mountain we got pretty nice views over the valley and visited a little temple that had been built around a big Buddha carved out of the mountain face.
On our way home we were taken out for lunch - well, more like a banquet there was so much food!! Most of our lunch was picked fresh from the mountain, such as wild spinach, dandelions and free range chicken!While Liv tried her best to improve her Chinese with her weekly lesson on Sunday Adam ventured out far and beyond with Dovid on the motorbike. They set off at 12.30pm and got back after 10pm - Liv was starting to get very worried ...
Here is Adam's account of the mammoth adventure:
"First of all we cruised through 3 or 4 small villages nestled in a valley and followed a small road until its end, where we ditched the bike and spent the next few hours hiking up some very steep mountains!
Here we were treated with wicked panoramic views over lakes and Buddhist statues. The mountainside was covered in forest, with little pagodas dotting the landscape. 
Eventually we went back down to the bike and bought some wild walnuts who had been kindly watching over our bike and gear.From here we took some random roads that weaved their way through the mountains, up over passes and eventually we found ourselves driving along a dirt path through small towns and villages where we stopped for our third tank refuel of the day. We continued the mission circumnavigating multiple lakes and eventually the road we were on took us to the base of the mighty Tai Shan mountain, which is when we realised just how far we were from Jinan, and how late it already was. Not that this stopped us from taking another dirt path, further into the mountains! Our journey was momentarily halted when pieces of the bike started falling off, so we stopped to chill under a blossoming tree next to a small pond. After so many hours on the bike, it was a welcome relief to stretch out, but the light was fading and we knew we needed to make it home.
Our journey back commenced with coming across a number of dead end roads and a few hours of being semi-sure of where we were going (or completely utterly lost - depending on which way you look at it)! We spent a solid half hour in first gear going up a steep mountain, almost flipped the bike, but eventually we found ourselves on the outskirts of Jinan, back on real roads, and managed to find a restaurant to eat our first meal since 12pm. An hour later we were home, utterly exhausted!"
Adlibing more mountains.
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