Day 373 - So long Jinan

We woke to an early alarm, and dragged ourselves up from off the floor - and spent a few minutes contemplating the packs we'll have to carry for the next 10 or so months! Today is probably the last day we'll be in Jinan for a long time, if not ever. After saying goodbye to our good friend Dovid, we headed into town for some supermarket shopping to provide us with snacks for our 13 hour train. On the train, we settled in to our seats, and made aquaintences with our seat-mates.

There's not really much more to say about the train - hard seats sound exactly like they are: hard, not much room, and the food is what you bring on yourselves - in our case, 2 minute noodles and bananas.

We arrived in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province, at 1.30am, and by 2am we were lost and wandering the streets in the dark! In our exhaustion, we broke the adlibing rules (maybe 2 weeks with mumbles and pops had softened us up) and caught a taxi to a hotel. The hotel staff were fast asleep when we arrived, and were not too happy when we woke them up - in fact they tried to tell us there were no rooms left! But a bit of persistence meant that we eventually got a room - after at least 20 minutes of them trying to decipher our visas etc!!

By 2.30am, we were fast asleep.

Adlibing it the hard way.

TRAVEL TIP: Chinese help for travellers

While we were staying in Hangzhou, we met Ray Zhou, from Yoyoor - Smart Phone Rental. His company has developed this cool smart phone that you hire by paying a daily rental (around $8 a day) while in China. It's a cellphone (with inbuilt IP cheap calling), camera, gps system, and also gives you 24 hour access to a live Chinese translator. We have to say we haven't used the phone, but it sounds and looks great to us - especially for travellers to China who can't speak any Chinese!

Day 372 - A smoggy Jinan welcome

Cough! Cough! Coming out of the train station and getting a lung-full of polluted air we knew we were back in Jinan! But back on familiar stomping grounds we bought onward train tickets for tomorrow, jumped on the bus and headed to Shan Shi Lu for some pancakes for breakfast (yes mumbles we had pancakes, and they were delicious), before heading back to campus to crash at Dovid's place for the day/night. That's one of the bonuses of having great friends, who are always welcoming! We'll meet up with the mountain men Brad and Dave tonight for a final catchup with them too.

For now we're trying to pack again, and wondering how after sending so much stuff home we can still have so much stuff left!

Adlibing it in Jinan as guests.

Day 371 - A teary goodbye

Unfortunately the day had arrived when the 4-member adlibing crew was splitting up ... Luckily we had the gorgeous school kids just outside the window to cheer us up momentarily! They were fun enough to watch when they were playing around, but when they started doing a group dance / kungfu routine to Queen's "We Will Rock You" it was hilarious!

Too soon though the kids went back to class and it was time for mumbles and pops to catch a taxi to the train station. Liv and mumbles held out pretty well until the last minute when the tears started flowing - it's wasn't the fact that Liv wasn't going home, or that mumbles and pops were, but because we wouldn't see each other for almost another year. Even though we have so much to look forward over the next few months, it's still incredibly hard to say goodbye - especially for Liv who's such a homebody at heart.


After they left, we took over their room (having only been able to afford dorms ourselves!) and read, packed, and hung out until midday, when we went out in search of cheap food - quite a difficult task in expensive Hangzhou. We found a small roadside restaurant about 15 minutes away and once again the standard 2-vege and steamed rice meals have begun! Hello 15 kuai meals, goodbye yummy, varied food eaten in the company of family ...

In the afternoon, we sat in the sun in the park and read our books away, before jumping on a train back to Jinan. Yes, you read right, we are once again heading back to Jinan - will we ever truly leave this place for good?!


Adlibing it alone, again.

Day 370 - A taste of Italy in the middle of China

Thankfully the rain pretty much ceased for the majority of the day today, meaning we could get out and see some of beautiful Hangzhou. We started off with a walk around the lake and across the Su Di (causeway) to the other side. Along the way we stopped to click off pictures of the misty mountains that surround the lake and boast hilltop pagodas - these Chinese landmarks remind us that we're still in China, as Hangzhou is one of the most Westernised Chinese cities.

Our first snack stop reminded us why buying corn cobs that had been boiled for hours is not a good idea - though the fish in the lake didn't seem to mind the chewy tasteless kernels! Our second stop proved very fortuitous and instead of it costing us 20 kuai, we made 80 kuai plus 4 ice creams after mumbles spotted a 100 kuai note in the bushes!!

With her new found riches, mumbles treated us all to a cafe lunch - which turned out much better than we thought! Thanks Wireless Coffee for our yummy spicy chips and burgers for much less than KFC across the road!!!

After a brief walk around one of the islands, we jumped on a bus that gave us a wonderful tour around the tea plantations and villages in the surrounding hillsides.

Mumbles and pops headed out to buy a suitcase to cope with their purchases and our 10 kgs worth of stuff we want them to take home for us - thanks guys! This marks the prelude to the teary goodbyes coming tomorrow, as mum and dad pack to leave ...

But for now the tears were forgotten as we were treated to a birthday/Christmas/thanks for being tour guides/goodbye dinner at a fabulous Italian Restaurant - Cafe L96. This turned out to be the best meal we've had in a very long time - amazing (and a little sad) that an expensive Italian meal can bring so much joy to us budget travellers! But given a set menu that included breads, soup, salad, pasta/steak, and unlimited mini-cakes and home-made ice cream (yes, unlimited), how can you blame us for being blissfully giddy! Adam was also delighted by the 'real' beers with percentages closing in on 5%, instead of the usual 2-3%!!

Back at the hostel we prolonged the thought of going to bed, finding any excuse to continue our conversations!

Adlibing our last day together, tastily!

Day 369 - Seeing Hangzhou in the rain

After having a huge western-style buffet breakfast first thing this morning (hopefully that'll do us on the 'western food' front for a while) and packing up, we moved down the road to the hostel we stayed at last year. The Mingtown was fine, but the rooms were really small, and the West Lake Youth Hostel has newer, bigger rooms for slightly cheaper! The staff at this hostel is so great, the receptionist even remembered us from last year!!

Braving the rain we walked the couple of kms down the road, and then set out on the tourist bus that took us on a cruise around the lake, and eventually to the train station - a bit sad really because on Thursday mumbles and pops head to Shanghai for their flight to NZ, and we go back to Jinan to pick up the rest of our gear before heading north. Liv will definitely not be in the best of spirits come Thursday morning ...
After our successful trip to the train station we made our way towards the National Silk Museum through one of the many lush greeb parks that are dotted around the shoreline. We visited the silk museum in Suzhou last year after the Lonely Planet told us it was a sight not-to-be-missed, but we left disappointed. The Hangzhou museum we visited today was much more interesting - we all got a detailed lesson in the making of silk right from seeing silk worms munch their way through mulberry leaves, through to watching women weaving material on great looms! It seems to us that the Hangzhou Silk Museum is that one that's not to be missed!

Back at our hostel we had an afternoon snack and the boys enjoyed a few beers - same story, different day (or as they say in Asia: same same, but different)!!

Out at the night markets we all enjoyed wandering around looking at the different stalls, and Adam finally managed to buy Liv a gorgeous pearl necklace, something to last forever just like our Adlibing memories.

Still adlibing it in the rain.

Day 368 - From the rain to the rain

We woke this morning to rain in Tunxi, and by the time our bus arrived in Hangzhou the rain was noticeably harder! We just hope that the harder it rains the quicker it goes away. Despite the wetness, the 4 of us walked up the road to find food, totally disappointing ourselves with our purchases and getting soaking wet in the process! Not to worry though because pops has already sussed out a tasty place for dinner ...

Right now mumbles and pops are off shopping and we're deliberating over accommodation and transport for the next few days.

Adlibing it, despite the rain!

Day 367 - Rain, rain, go away ...

After a morning of deliberation, we finally decided to brave the persistent rain and head out to Qiyun Shan (Mountain). Before you start thinking that we're all crazy enough to climb yet another mountain, we'd better let you know we did the sensible thing (some might call it lazy) and caught the cable car to the top! The journey to Qiyun Shan was easy - we took a local bus to the bus station where we picked up tickets for tomorrow's departure to Hangzhou and then hopped on a bus heading past the mountain. On the way we saw farmers tending their paddies, an old pagoda with trees growing out the top, and were eventually dumped on the side of the road (which we were expecting)!

Qiyun Shan is less famous than Huangshan, but we all found the scenery it offered phenomenal - much more like what we were expecting from Anhui province. As we ambled along the riverside we watched water buffalo and their babies soaking in the water and made our way passed small shops as we headed towards the cable car that sped us to the top and gave us amazing panorama views. At the top we gazed out over hamlets amongst the farms below, all of which were dwarfed be mist covered mountains stretching far into the distance. At the bottom the girls continued the 'lazy' trend and caught a rickshaw back towards the village while the boys followed behind on foot! We all wandered over Deng Feng Bridge and through a small village before returning to the side of the road to wave down a bus to get us back to Tunxi.

We are now sitting at an internet cafe silently cursing the fact that we can't upload any of our photos from the last week onto the blog, most likely due to the ever present internet censorship here.

Adlibing it in green Anhui.

Day 366 - A derserved rest to bring in year 2

Although this is our 366th day on the Adlibing Asia Tour, it actually marks our year in Asia as 2008 is a leap year, so we gained ourselves and extra day! We decided to make the most of our extra time in true relaxed holiday style.

Here is a recap of today's events as told by mumbles and pops, with our additions:

So today was officially a rest day, after a good sleep in and much creaking of joints to get out of bed we pottered around, had breakfast in our room and did a bit of planning for the next couple of days. We are staying here tonight and tomorrow night as there is no accommodation in Hangzhou until Monday night so we'll head there on the early train/bus on Monday and probably stay there for one night, 2 days then head to Shuzhou for a couple of days before heading off to Shanghai and the adlibing crew returns to two!
After our planning we did a bit of reading of the planet and found a village called Shexian which is only about 45 minutes away by bus that has the only surviving 4 sided stone entrance gate or something like that: - so off we walked to get the bus waving it down on the side of the road -probably quite good for the joints actually. Stayed in the village a couple of hours wandering the old streets and trying to avoid the mega-phone wielding tour group leader. We successfully managed to veer off the main trails into yet more Chinese alleyways hidden from the tour groups but available to those willing to do it their own way (the adlibing way). Now it's nearly time to head out for something to eat and probably none of us will complain about a relatively early night tonight! It's been a really warm day today, no sun to speak of but probably around 32 - 34 and very humid, so some of the crew are just enjoying it knowing that in less than a week they'll be lucky to be in double figures! The other 2 crew-members are dreading as well as looking forward to a year of these sort of temperatures!

A final word from mumbles and pops - we are still thoroughly enjoying being included in the adlibing adventures and though we are looking forward to some aspects of coming home we haven't got tired of the Asian adventure. Food is still great,people friendly, weather beautiful and of course being with Liv and Adam makes it perfect.

The adlibing adventure continues.

Day 365 - Celebrating our 365th day of travelling up the top of Huang Shan

We had a not-so-smooth start to the day after the hostel's 5.40am breakfast arrived cold at almost 6.30am and a late bus, we eventually made it to the bottom of Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) and began our ascent at 9.15am. Huangshan is probably the most famous mountain in China, and a climb to the top is counted as one of the top 10 things to do in China according to the Lonely Planet.
As we huffed and puffed our way to the top via the rumored 8,000 eastern steps we tried our best to take in the stunning mountain views - we can't complain though as during the entire muscle destroying mountain mission we were constantly passing and being passed by porters carrying loads of between 50-100kgs each! This is an act they complete every day (Adam has just decided on a new means of client training when we get home)!!! Once we reached the top and started walking around and down the western steps that the views really started to amaze us. Ginormous granite rock faces and peaks jutted out of the ground for as far as the eye could see, and despite being so rocky were surrounded by lush green forests...
But rather than hear it from the original adlibers, we'll let the new members of the adlibing teams give it to you in their words: We had all agreed that each of us could go at whatever pace we wanted and that no-one had to wait or keep up with the others - this only really affected Adam as the rest of us were all about the same gentle (SLOW!) pace. The Planet advises a trip up the eastern side (7.5 km) and down the western (15km) -sounds easy when you say it fast - the eastern is about 8,000 steps up from about 890m to our highest point of 1860m.The scenery is absolutely stunning and we have the photos to prove it! And if we thought that the going was hard going up then we underestimated the downward journey! There was an option of a cable car from about 1/4 way down but we all thought that it was worth the effort to finish the climb ourselves!! We had thought that the 15km meant that it was a gentler slope and therefore more flat/sloping paths but it turned out to be 15km of steps straight down and boy the knees and calves were strained by the time we walked out the exit gate at5.15pm.
However there were many stops to take photos of the amazing rock formations, and even though we are suffering a bit today it was worth every gasping breath and every sore bone, I would definitely say it was one of our highlights, though also one that I am glad we are not repeating in the next little while. A lot of tourists either take the cable car one way or stay overnight up the top and take it over 2 days, the round trip is meant to be about 10 hours and we did it in 8 with about an hour for lunch and soooooo many photo stops (I think we took 100+) - but I guess the photo stops are factored in. Anyway, WE DID IT! And we also have a gold medal to prove it. Though the point that we got the gold medal was 1810m so we should have got it at our high point!

Adlibing it together.

Day 364 - Chilling out in preparation ...

As we plan to climb Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) tomorrow, we all decided it was a good idea to have a relaxed day today. We slept in, had a lazy morning and headed out for shopping and lunch around 12.30pm.

A fair chunk of the afternoon was spent doing the near impossible task of finding pops some shoes that fit (he's one size too big for Chinese shoes!) for him to climb the mountain tomorrow. We were about to settle for huge, rather funny white and silver basketball shoes, when we finally found some nice, simple sports shoes.

Adam managed to get his walking shoes repaired for 1 kuai, so hopefully they'll last a few more months yet! Luckily there's always a fix-it man close by in China. On his way to the shoe fix-it man Adam managed to adlib his way through some old narrow streets, taking in the way of life that is typically Chinese and found everywhere we go - but always enjoyable!

We also managed (well, mainly mum and dad) to find some gifts to send back home for family before settling in for a great meal just off the old street, where the boys got to enjoy local Yellow Mountain beef, and mum and dad tried bamboo shoots! On our way back to the hostel we wandered along the river, and its not-too-imposing wall.

Apart from finding dinner tonight, we're literally about to pack and prepare ourselves for waking up at an ungodly hour in the morning.

Adlibing it around town.

Day 363 - 18 hours on a train to the mountains

After getting on the train at midnight, we all pretty much found our beds and went straight to sleep! We spent the day on the train doing nothing much more than sitting, lying, reading, eating and chatting - although at one stage mum and dad had an English lesson with one of the train conductors!!
For about the last 2 -3 hours of our 18 hour train trip we had some amazing views of the mountains and small villages - just a small taste of what's to come over the next week or so we spend around here in Anhui Province (one of the provinces not to be missed according to the Lonely Planet!). We arrived at Huangshan City around 6.30pm, checked into the hostel across the road and headed out for a stroll around town, we paused to watch a small park filled with Chinese laddies dancing with fans while the kids and men chilled in the cool of the evening. Eventually we had a late dinner at a hotpot restaurant. Yum yum!

Adlibing it a long way from Jinan!

Day 362 - A day of travelling

After a welcome sleep in this morning, the 4 of us jumped on a bus back to Jinan, where we spent the afternoon and evening just hanging around eating and drinking until our train to Huangshan tonight.

Adam made a rush to Brad's place to pick up our train tickets, while Mum, Dad and Liv went to McDonalds for coffee and chips! This will be by far the longest train trip for Mumbles and Pops and one of the biggest for us at 18 and a half hours!! But not to worry - we have plenty of food and good company!

Adlibing it back to Jinan.

Day 361- Rock Solid Fun

Holy Crap! Time exists before 6am?!! After having finally decided (it's much harder to get 4 people to agree to a plan than 2) to catch the early train to start our journey to a stone village, we were all up and at the train station before 6.30am this morning. The train rolled along providing us with a taster of things to come, and finally dropped us off at Jingxing, an hour and half away. Here were dined on good old Chinese street snack food, before getting on a local bus and bumping our way along the road towards Yujiacun - a stone village were most of the people share Yu as a surname.

This clan village has been around for hundreds of years, and really is full of stone: stone paths, stone buildings, stone beds .. you get the idea!! We somehow received a free personal guide for the first half hour, who had a pocket full of keys to let us into some of the most famous and interesting structures of the village. After showing us a good place to return to for lunch, we set off and began adlibing our own way around town!

The next few hours were rock solid enjoyment (!), and we zig-zagged our way through tight alleyways of polished stone, chatting with the locals on the way (including a 67 year old rock mason who was still chipping away), climbing hills to get views over the village, and observing a laid back way of life in this peaceful village.
After a lunch of local veges and meat at a villager's home, we stood on the side of the road to catch our bus back to Jingxing - it's always good fun waving down buses, especially when they stop for you and are going to where you want to go! Eventually we hopped from bus to bus to bus with the 3rd one dropping us a minute's walk from our hostel.

Back in town we checked our emails to find out that the Brad the Legendary Mountain Man of Jinan had managed to pull a miracle for the adlibing crew and get us 4 tickets for tomorrow night to Huangshan City, the next destination on the tour with Mumbles and Pops. Last night was a bit stressful, after going to the train station and finding that the next few days were completely booked out from here - this has never happened to us in our year of travelling in China. So thank goodness for Brad for saving us from several days of slowly making our way south by bus.

We're about to chill out, knock back a few local beers, and eventually drag our tired bodies out for a meal to match last night's - hopefully!

Adlibing a friendly stone village.

Traveller's Note: We found it really hard to find info about staying overnight in Yujiacun, even though it is recommended by the Lonely Planet. As it turns out it would have been so easy, and really lovely, as there are plenty of local homes offered as accommodation - they provide beds with bedding - and good priced food is easy to come by. The ticket office people will also be able to help you find somewhere to stay if need be. Even though we didn't stay overnight ourselves, we'd recommend it to others, as the village was great and the villagers wonderful.

Days 354-360 - We're outa here!

With only one week left in Jinan, we experienced a cocktail of lasts (last class, last Wei Weis, last lesson, last mountain men etc) mixed with frantic organisation. For Adam's final Wei Weis night he decided once and for all to start and complete the Wei Weis 10 beer and 100 chuanr challenge - this resulted in an immensely enjoyable evening of smack talk, photos, goodbyes and eventually one hell of a hangover for his last 4 hours of class on Thursday morning.

On Thursday night Mumbles and Pops returned and joined in the celebrations of knowing that we have taught our last English class (possibly forever) and are about to embark on our 11 month adlibing tour around Asia. On Friday we steadily worked on our 'pack pack pack' mantra, and at 4am Adam finally made it to bed - with only a few more hours of organising left on Saturday. Saturday morning, 8am, our boss Eileen arrived and was more efficient than usual (typical, just as we're leaving things start going to plan) and gave us our money to sustain us for the next few months.

We left campus around 10.30am, after saying goodbye to Matt (Mr K), who we'll hopefully catch up with again sometime, somewhere, in the future. For the next 2 weeks the adlibing crew has doubled in size with new recruits Mumbles and Pops Porter joining us before they head back home to the kiwi paradise, we'll slowly make our way home to over the next year or so.

Our first stop was Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei Province (another one down!), where we arrived and once we found a great hostel (Shijiazhuang City Central Youth Hostel, just across the road from the train station) we started enjoying ourselves! We went out to a yummy Korean restaurant for dinner, sitting at the window, watching people watch us! Afterwards we wandered the street markets, and sat on the side of the road drinking beer and lemonade, enjoying being part of an un-touristy part of China.

After a bit of a sleep in on Sunday we ventured out to Zhengding, about 1 hour away, where we spent the day ambling in no particular direction, but ending at destinations well worth the walk. Zhengding is a town where instead of high rise buildings dominate the skyline, intricately carved pagodas and towers reach into the sky. Instead of paying for a through-ticket to power through 10 or more temples/pagoda complexes, we wandered past them and just went into one of the more interesting ones - the first pagoda Mumbles and Pops would climb up in China. We wandered off the main roads, following dirt paths into the farmland and later found ourselves in the back alleyways enjoying a different experience to what many tourists experience in Zhengding. Back in Shijiazhuang we set about planning the next 10 days or so, but before long our stomachs were calling out for food and we went wandering. We ended up in a cool little side street where we dined on a true feast, that would easily have fed a few more people, but was so unbelievably tasty that we couldn't stop eating!

Adlibing it back on the tour.

Days 347-353 - Nothing changes in Jinan

As the title to this post suggests, this week was same 'ol in Jinan. Our teaching week was filled up with final exams! The trade off of having no lessons to plan was having to try and stay interested to 100 students talk about the same topics - of course in perfect Chinglish. We really should have written this earlier so we could have shared some comments from our learned students with you - for example when one student was talking about the four styles of cooking they listed off frying, steaming, boiling, and of course you can't forget exploding!

In the weekend Liv had her final Chinese lesson and Adam his final mountain men training session, after which we met up at a Buddhist Vegetarian restaurant to say thanks to Brad and Dave for all their amazing encouragement and body-bashing training sessions over the last year.

On her way to meet the boys at the restaurant, Liv experienced yet another example of the genuine helpfulness of the average Chinese person - being directionally challenged and therefore getting lost, Liv asked for directions and ended up having a personal escort right to the door of the restaurant!

The rest of the weekend was spent running errands and doing last minute shopping. Included in our errands was getting lots of things fixed - as is the Chinese way: wear and repair overrides throwing out and buying new. For less than $4 we had 2 pairs of shoes and a belt repaired while we sat on the side of the street with the fix-it man and people-watched.

Adlibing our Jinan.

Days 340-346 - The adlibing crew expands and draws attention!

On Wednesday morning we got up early and made our way to the train station to pick up Mumbles, Pops, Aunty Trudy, and Uncle Brian, who are travelling in China and popping in to visit us for a few days. Seeing a familiar face is wonderful, but when it's family it's so fantastic that it's almost overwhelming!

After catching 2 buses back to our apartment, we spent the morning catching up and hearing the travellers' stories from their few days in Shanghai. We were both proud to hear that they have already immersing themselves well and truly into the Chinese culture - it just means that we were going to have to work a little bit harder to show them different things in Jinan.

After lunch in our favourite local Muslim restaurant we sorted out train tickets for their onward trip to Qingdao, and then set off to show them Wei Weis and the Muslim area of Jinan. While the boys drunk beer and ate bbq meat, the girls had samosas and naan at the Pakistani restaurant "Jasmines" and went to Walmart! After seeing the disgusting state of the Wei Wei's toilet Brian (rightly) concluded it would be more hygienic to use the alleyways instead. At home the girls chatted and gossiped and waited for the boys to return home after their night out.

On Thursday morning we had to go to class (and Mumbles and Pops sat in on Adam's class for a few minutes, just to see what it was like), and afterwards we headed into town for "Mission Optometrist". During this almost 4 hour mission all the visitors had their eyes tested, and picked out an assortment of prescription sunglasses and normal eye-glasses. In the end we purchased 7 pairs of glasses for about a 1/5th of the cost in NZ (including a pair for Mum Denton back in NZ).

After all that work, Adam and Liv led the way to their favourite restaurant in town for a yummy Chinese meal - I think all agreed the meal was delicious, though some of the visitors mentioned afterwards that they would never enter a restaurant "that looked like that" had we not taken them there! Aim accomplished!

We finished the evening off with a stroll through the night market, only to be cut short by the approaching thunderstorm!

Here's Adam the tour guide:

After another slow start on Friday morning, while the men looked around the huge Cyber Market, Liv took the girls to the old Catholic church. On the bus there we were the centre of attention as an old lady really wanted to know how old Mum and Trudy were!! Later, we made it into town for lunch and a look around some of the famous springs in Jinan and a wander through the mazes of alleyways that wind their way around the single storey old town. Adam even stripped off to his boxers and jumped in the local spring 'swimming pool' - typical Adam behaviour!! While walking around we came across a car on fire - the driver made it burst into flames when he decided to open the bonnet - a bit of excitement, especially for firefighter mumbles! We also strolled down the city river and checked out Black Tiger Springs where lots of locals come to get their fresh water. While Adam and Brian waited to take photos at the bottom, the other four of us climbed the war memorial for a (somewhat hazy) view over the city.

Back at the apartment we all got our energy revived before heading down to another local favourite restaurant for a Hot Pot dinner. Here we chose our veges and meat to cook in the pot on the table - one half filled with super-spicy broth and the other half with a non-spicy but just as delicious broth. As usual the night was filled with chatter, laughter and the drinking of more than a few beers. The men are still marvelling at the size and price of the cheap local beers - in fact Adam is still marvelling at this and he's been here almost a year!!! This means that while the girls are off shopping or wandering, the boys can be found sitting in a restaurant drinking beer (yay - Adam finally has drinking companions!).

With the knowledge that Saturday was the last day we all had together we knew we had to make the most of it. Our first stop was Da Fo Tou Shan (Big Buddha Head Mountain) where Adam usually trains every week. We made our way to see the remains of the old Buddhist temple and the rock carvings that colourfully line the cliff face. Afterwards we all made the hike up the steep mountain to the "Buddha Head" and for a great big view of nothing - unfortunately the smog has been terrible over the last few days meaning the family had to look at our pictures to see what they should have been able to see! Pops also got to set some fireworks off - according to Adam this is an obligatory Chinese experience.

Afterwards we went to a delicious vegetarian restaurant where even the meat-eaters enjoyed their yummy lunch - and even though slightly more expensive than the previous restaurants we have taken them to: still only cost us NZ$30 for the 6 of us! After coming from super-expensive NZ, the family love converting to NZ dollars to see how cheap everything is. We earn Chinese dollars, so the effect is somewhat lost on us. However having the family here meant that the adlibers were treated to meals out everyday (and the occasional taxi!) - spoilt like we were kids again! Excellent!!

After lunch we went to the Hero Mountain markets for a stroll around (and some purchases) before making it home just before the heavens opened up. Mumbles, Trudy, Brian, and Liv caught a taxi home, and Adam and Pops arrived half an hour later after jamming themselves into a bus. Because the rain was pelting down outside, the family's last night in Jinan was spent at our place, where Adam cooked his delicious satay pumpkin dish, which we ate while laughing at all the photos we had taken over the last few days. There sure are a lot of good memories that will last us a long time!!

On Sunday morning we picked up a few more of the glasses from the optometrist, before farewelling our family into a taxi. Not too bad, because we will see Mumbles and Pops in a couple of weeks time, after they have seen a bit more of China and we have finished work! Liv only shed a few tears at seeing her family leave ...

The adlibing tour guides.

Adlibing extras...

Throughout our time at Shandong University we noticed the students make no acknowledgement of the guards and cleaners and all the hard work they do around campus - we on the other hand have made a conscious effort to wave, greet, and smile at all the workers, and have therefore become 'friends' even though the extent of our conversations are extremely limited!! Here is a photo of Adam with our favourite guard who always salutes us with a great big smile!

Days 333-339 - Counting down

This week, nothing out of the ordinary happened - well nothing out of the ordinary if you are an English teacher in Jinan! We spent a lot of the week preparing for Liv's family arriving next week, and for our trip around Asia that begins in 3 weeks.

On Saturday night Adam and Matt decided to give the Wei Wei's Challenge a go. For those who haven't heard of this particular challenge it involves drinking 10 bottles of 600ml beer and eating 100 meat kebabs - all in 3 hours. Over half way through, Adam realised all he was going to get for completing the challenge was an extremely bad hangover the next day, so he forfeited. Matt fearlessly (and perhaps stupidly) carried on, only to pass out on the table before he could finish ...

The boys offered excuses along the lines of "I could have done it when I was still an alcoholic student", but all that really matters is that they tried!!

On Sunday Liv's mood increased 100 times when she received a call from her Mum and Dad from Shanghai! They are in the country, and only 3 days away from Jinan!!

Adlibing, adplanning, addrinking, and adwaiting our time left in Jinan ...

Days 326-332 - Ticking off another Province

With an extra day off due to the Chinese Labour Day, we decided to make the most of it and headed off to Shanxi Province. The Labour Day holiday used to be one of the "Golden Weeks" where the entire Chinese population was on the move and travelling was a phenomenal task! Luckily for us the week-long holiday is now only a 3-day one, meaning not all of the 1.3 billion people here are moving around.

Our day on Thursday started early as we needed to make it on time for our bus all the way across town - about 2 hours by bus. But after 4 buses passed us without stopping because they were full well before they got to our stop (when we say full, we mean sardine-tin with people hanging out the door!), we had to resort to catching a taxi. This meant we got to the station more than an hour early, so after getting our tickets we sat down to observe the chaos around us.

We eventually boarded our bus, which would drop us off in Taiyuan 8 hours later. As soon as we arrived we bought our tickets back to Jinan for Sunday, to ensure we actually got home in time to teach on Monday! With little to do in Taiyuan we headed straight for the train station to try for a train to Pingyao that night - and were successful, the only down side being that it didn't leave until 11.20pm, four hours later.

So we headed to a nearby restaurant with a couple of French teachers we met on the bus to count the hours down.

We finally arrived in Pingyao just after 1am in the morning and headed straight to our accommodation and bed.
On Friday we spent the day wandering around Pingyao Old Town. Pingyao is one of the most famous Old Towns in China, and is home to the first Chinese bank. Because the town fell into poverty in the 20th century, there was no money to modernise, subsequently creating a zone of the past for tourists to visit.
Although we enjoyed the old town and the many museums, temples and government offices (including the first bank and old prisons), we found it much more enjoyable to lose ourselves along the back alleyways of the town. Once off the main roads you find the 'real' old town, with children playing, grandmas and grandpas just sitting back enjoying life and not trying to hawk souvenirs to all passing tourists - actually they looked a little surprised that we were not on the main tourists roads! On Saturday we headed outside of the city walls to Shuanglin Temple - a Buddhist temple purportedly one of the most famous in Shanxi Province, with exquisite carvings throughout the temple. Some of the broken carvings revealed the secret to their production, with a wood skeleton and clay-like mud to create the shape and give detail, before painting to finish. One of the down points of visiting this temple was that due to the fact that Shanxi is the centre of coal production all the statues were covered in coal dust, and robbed them of their colours and details.

After visiting the temple we wandered around the village that seemed basically asleep, before heading back to our hotel to shelter from the rain. The afternoon was spent adlibing our way around some more alleyways, spending most of it lost but thoroughly enjoying the feeling - although we always had the wall to keep us from wandering too far astray. The wall was cool to see, especially in the parts of town where it hadn't been renovated because it was just mud - none of the new 'old' bricks in sight. We also popped up onto the wall for a view over the city. A highlight of the day was entering a Taoist Temple at the end of the day and almost having it entirely to ourselves - a nice contrast from the previous day when we struggled to even move in the crowds. That night we really treated ourselves: first we got a full body Chinese massage, before indulging in our first Western Meal since Vietnam, which was definitely worth the high price!

On Sunday morning we began the mammoth trip in reverse and arrived back in Jinan in time for dinner! The only hitch was getting caught in major traffic jams that added in 2 hours to our travelling time, and resulted in the bus being turned off along with the air-con.

It was an awesome trip into the past, and possibly the last time we'll have a home to return to for the next year!

Adlibing the old alleys.

Days 319-325 - Lighting up the sky

As we count down the weeks to the end of our contract, we spend the weeks organising and getting supplies for our up-and-coming 11 month trip. But by the weekend we're ready to chill our and have some fun!

This Saturday in addition to our normal activities of Chinese Lessons and Kung fu, the foreign delegates of the Shandong University Software Campus (us) threw a good ol' kiwi bbq with a bit of Chinese bang to top it off! On Wednesday the coal for the bbq was provided free by Wei Wei who's exact words were "you can't pay for the coal, or we can't have fun next week". After picking up the necessary supplies of meat and some veges for vege kebabs, we set about the major task of acquiring a keg. With the motorbike temporarily out of action, Matt and Adam taxied down the road expecting to travel some distance to make the purchase, but a couple of minutes down the road, out the corner out of their eyes they spotted some kegs, stopped the taxi and had luck on their side because 5 minutes later they were carrying a keg of Laoshan Beer back to campus.

As night fell, out friends began to arrive and so we fired up the bbq, which resulted in Matt almost losing all the hair on his head, as the 'lighter fluid' was actually full of gasoline! The bbq burned all night, and was constantly graced by a stack of kebabs while we sat around tables lit up with flashing Christmas lights! Music was a mix of tunes from the computer and a mix of the parties musicians busting out on their guitars. In between emptying the keg, shots of baijiu were passed around, contributing to the Chinese/Western theme.

Big boxes of fireworks provided extra excitement for the night, and probably contributed to our regular visits from the campus security guards, who were probably more curious about the laowai and our happenings, than the fireworks themselves!

Adlibing it bbq style!

Days 312-318 - A meeting with Confucius

Taking advantage of our 3-day weekend we ventured off on Friday to the hometown of the Great Chinese Sage Confucius, along with Matt. We ended up getting to Qufu in the late afternoon, and by the time we found and checked into our hostel all the temples were closed. So we spent the evening strolling around inside the walled town (we even strayed outside the wall for a bit!), checking out the locals doing their stuff. Inside the wall the streets and buildings have mostly been redone for the benefit of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to Qufu every year, but outside the walls there still remains plenty of dirt roads and sellers selling their local wares (as opposed to the tourist junk inside) - the boys favourite being the cheap Chinese fireworks that were a must on the list of things to buy in Qufu!

After a typical Chinese meal we settled ourselves in the middle of the night markets to drink, chat, and people-watch the night away. It's actually quite interesting watching the goings-on of the markets and observing the sellers try to lure passer-bys to eat at their stall - the food on offer ranges from a variety of greens and other veges, as well as the usual frogs, eels, fish and other creatures which flop around in their cramped little bowls.

In the morning we went out to explore the sights around town. Our first stop was the Confucius Mansions, where Confucius' ancestors lived since around the 16th Century - after Confucius thought became really popular. Confucius himself was born in the 5th Century BC, into a poor family and his teachings didn't become well-known until after his death. The Mansions were big, elaborate, and beautiful but the whole experience was dampened due to the fact that the rest of China came to visit Qufu on the same day as us!! Well, not quite, but it sure felt that way.

From the Mansions we headed to the Temple of Confucius where we continued the battle of trying to see through and over the masses.That aside, the temple complex is very impressive and consists of rebuilt temples and pathways, and also numerous temples and other historical remnants that retain their old character (by this we mean they are in a somewhat original state and haven't been done up yet).

After wandering through the temples we passed through all the touts trying to sell us things including horse carriage rides where one poor horse is at times made to pull the carriage with more than 10 passengers inside. We did however stop to buy a Chop (Chinese carved stamp) to commemorate the Adlibing Asia Tour, and then moved on past the pedicab drivers and made our way to the Confucius Forest. Once we followed the tour groups to Confucius' tomb we managed to veer off the concrete path and actually go into the forest, which is covered with blooming flowers as far as the eyes could see, and for once China smelt like flowers instead of pollution.

On our way to the bus station we stopped off for snacks and fireworks and began the typical bus-bus-bus-bus journey back to our apartment in Jinan.

Adlibing it with Confucius.