Spring Festival and General Recap

I cannot believe that a) our wedding is less than 2 months from now, b) we've been in China for 9 months, and c) I have only posted twice since we arrived here! Actually, I can believe that last one. Big time procrastinating on a blog post. So much to catch up on. Let's start with 2 vacations ago: Spring Festival. It's called Spring Festival because of the Lunar calendar, but it's actually in February.

We went to Taipei, Taiwan, to hang out with Maria, Sarah, and Ada. It was the best! Ready to move to Taipei already. Here are some pics to help describe our trip:

 

Not gonna lie, hanging out with this kid was a major highlight of the trip! I mean, just look at her! How could one kid be so funny, adorable, and charismatic? We had met Ada before but this was the first quality time we'd been able to spend with her, and it was so much fun!!! For those who don't know, Ada is the daughter of Sarah, who is Brian's cousin. Sarah and her sister Maria work at Taipei American School and we want to move there and hang out with them every day. ;)

 

Brian and Maria in Tianmu

Brian and I took a bus trip to Wulai hot springs, and it was a perfect day. There were several different pools to soak in, and we got to chat with the locals a bit too.

Brian in his happy place :)

In true teacher fashion, I got sick as soon as vacation started, so we weren't as active around Taipei as we'd hoped to be. But we still got in a trip to the night market, took a cooking class, had a day trip to the beach, ate so much amazing food, drank great coffee, and had a couple of visits to Din Tai Fung for the most delicious pork dumplings ever!

After a few days in Taipei, Brian and I took a side trip to Alishan, a scenic national park. We got there easily, thanks to the high speed train, and settled into a lodge in the foggy mountains. It rained almost the whole time we were there, but it was really beautiful and lush. Our guesthouse was in the green tea plantations so we explored around there a bit.

There's a forest railway there, and you can take a train from village to village throughout the mountain area.

Our guesthouse offered to shuttle us to the entrance to the mountain park, so we spent a day hiking around in the fog and drizzle. It felt so comforting, just like the PNW! The air felt so clean and fresh - a nice break from the high pollution in Qingdao during that time. Here are some photos from our hike around Alishan.

 

having a little rest

... and on our last day, a bit more visibility of the mountains!

Then we were back to Taipei, daydreaming so hard about moving there that we forgot about our flight back to Qingdao and had to book a new one the next day! Oops ;) But it gave us more time with the cousins so that was great. Here are some more photos from the trip.

Street art

Walking around Tianmu (Sarah and Maria's neighborhood)

 

Then there was a perfectly beautiful flower garden filled with these hideous plastic bears! But people seemed pretty into them.

very nice bears

more of the park

Drizzly walk along the boardwalk

Kitten House - Then and Now. Brian in Taipei 2010 / 2016 :)

a drizzly walk along the boardwalk

little photographer

Brian, Sarah and Ada eating hand-shaved noodles, yum!

What a wonderful trip! Big thanks and hugs to Sarah and Maria for showing us such a great time, just like last time. We really hope we can move to Taipei in the next few years!

I've really lost track of time since we've been here. Everything I've heard about teaching has been true; the days, months, and year FLY by, it's a wild roller coaster of emotions working with kids, and I find myself neglecting so many things after each exhausting day at work (like this blog!). I'll get more into what's been going on lately in the next blog post, but until then, here are some snapshots our Winter here!

Exploring old town

wine and clams with Mr. Song at the shop!

It snowed!

This giant Christmas tree was up outside our local shopping mall until April ;)

mustache water chestnut

cute scene in the library with grade 2 :)

Chinese New Year decorations on our door

Mr. Song's Dumpling Class :)))))

Around Chinese New Year, Mr. Song invited us to dinner with his wife and son, who was visiting from out of town. Brian had spoken to him on the phone a few times in the shop and we were excited to finally meet him! They took us to a Dongbei-style restaurant where they throw a whole fish, tofu, mushrooms, spices, and broth into this giant iron pot inside the table. They line the outside with corn-flour dough, and cover it with a wooden slat and towels for 30 minutes. When it's done, you get this rich and hearty fish stew with corn biscuits to dip in. Delicious!

Mr. Song's family and us

As you've probably heard me say before, our friendship with Mr. Song has truly been one of our favorite things about living in Qingdao. We stopped taking our Chinese lessons after Christmas time (due to being busy, tired, and lazy about studying), but we spend every week looking forward to our weekend when we make our trip to Happy Family Market to buy groceries and sit try to speak Chinese with Mr. Song. We just never know what we're in store for when we join him in his wine stall - a long tea-drinking session, fresh draft beer in the morning (from the stall across from his) with rice and cured sausage, giant glasses of wine with fresh clams, freshly made pork dumplings... always accompanied by hilarious attempts at conversation. His personality is such a delightful mix of gruff and kind! Whenever we leave the market, my heart feels so full. Shopping for your week's groceries seems like such a small event, but this market really lives up to its name, and I feel so lucky that Mr. Song invited us to drink tea with him that first time. Oh, and for the longest time we thought his name was "Mr. Sun," (which we always called him) but when we went to dinner with his family, his son told us his last name was Song. Of course we would have been calling him the wrong name the whole time ;)

So, this post doesn't fully catch you up on our happenings here - we've also had another holiday where Allie and Matt came to visit! That, and other updates will have to wait until the next post! xo

Mid-Autumn Holiday!

Hi! We just got back from a great six day train trip around the Shandong Province. We took the bullet train which is so comfortable and travels at 300 km/hr! The cause for a week-long break from work was the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which is celebrated according to the lunar cycle - to give thanks to the moon for the changing seasons and the harvest. Really lovely! Then October 1st was National Day, so the week in between those two days is considered the Mid-Autumn Holiday. Here are some photos and stories from our trip:

 

Day 1 - Jinan. This well says something like "drink tea, forget your problems," in ancient Chinese script.

Just had to sneak a pic of this dude in his little shorts. He was hanging out his grandaughter's clothes in the sun on the rocks as she had gotten wet playing in the pond :)

Baotu Spring in Jinan - 天下第一泉
which means "Number One Spring Under the Heaven"

Kids can buy rubber boots, water toys and water guns to play in all these little ponds around the spring. I'm surprised we didn't get sprayed! There aren't as many foreigners in Jinan as Qingdao, so we got a lot more attention there.

Streetside bbq in Jinan. We were invited by Brian's friend Dohar, who lives in Jinan and guided us around the city and showed us culinary specialties for a few days. BBQ is the thing in Jinan, the way seafood and beer are the thing of Qingdao. So Brian was happy :)

Here's a pic of the crew enjoying bbq! We had so much fun and met some really great folks. Thanks for the kind hospitality, Dohar!!

Day 2 - Jinan. We went to 1000 Buddha Mountain on the day of the full moon. It was really peaceful inside the park, despite there being so many people visiting for the holiday.

offerings

reclining Buddha stutue

Brian and Devil (his English name!), who we met at Dohar's dinner the night before. He offered to be our tour guide at the mountain that day which was so generous! According to a plaque at the park, this is the tallest sitting Buddha statue north of the Yangtze River.

Just driving my tank around in front of the Buddha! These little carparks for kids are such a thing in Asia - little cars, animals with wheels, tanks, etc are available for kids to ride around on.

These photos were taken inside a very impressive cave inside the park (which I have since learned is artificial). The statues and paintings inside the cave were extremely beautiful - one of the highlights of the trip.

When we first arrived in Jinan, Dohar tried to take us to a Love Hotel for our accommodations! hahaha :) He didn't seem to understand why we didn't want to stay there... but we eventually found this other cheapo and despite the creepy appearance of this bathroom pod, the room was actually ok (and the bed was much more comfortable than our bed in our apartment, which is a rock) :)

Day 3 - Qufu. This city houses the Temple and Cemetery of Confucius, and the Kong Family Mansion.

Brian enjoying a snack in snack alley (our term). Plastic bag around the bowl = less dishes to clean

Turtles represent wisdom and longevity

Confucius' Tomb. This cemetery is the largest (known) family cemetery in the world!

Flags are up everywhere for the holiday

Evening in Qufu. After walking all day long, we were able to meet up with Dohar for dinner again, as he was in town for work (he's a journalist).

Day 4 - Tai'an. We treated ourselves to a nice hotel and spent most of the day napping and recovering from a lot of walking, and since our hotel was a bit further away from the main part of the city, we didn't venture out for a walk until late afternoon.

After dinner we enjoyed a tea ceremony, where we tried two different kinds of teas and tried to chat with the tea attendant :)

Grape and peach Oreos! (we didn't try them)

Day 5 - This photo was taken right outside our hotel before we embarked on our hike of Taishan (Mount Tai)

Taishan is a sacred mountain in China and is associated with sunrise, birth, and renewal. The mountain is 7200 stairs on a paved path, with an option to take a gondola and bus part of the way. These photos were all taken during our hike.

It was VERY busy on the mountain!

gondolas (we took one part of the way back down from the top)

SO MANY STAIRS! It was really funny by the time we made it to the top - everyone was so haggard (including us). Lots of crying children being carried and people who were practically walking on all fours :)

This was at the top! 

Here's a photo on our gondola ride back down. We decided to gondola/bus back down because the hike from the base to the top took about 4.5 hours and our legs were feeling wobbly from stairs :)

This photo was meant to be a "before" photo of Brian in case he got food poisoning, which I was sure he would after eating at this restaurant! I'm usually not too worried about that kind of thing, but this place really freaked me out... but Brian was fine! I was expecting a repeat of our first couple of days in Manila ;)

We hiked a bit right outside our hotel on day 6, the last day of our trip. It was a nice splurge to stay there!

Day 6 - back in Jinan, where we had a 4 hour train stop-over before returning to Qingdao. Just enough time to take a little boat ride on Daming Lake and meet Dohar for one last dinner and beers. 

We were lucky to have relatively nice weather during our trip, with only a few of the days being very polluted. It was so nice to have a break from work, especially for Brian, whose schedule just doubled! He is now teaching 6 periods per day and has a much heavier workload. Right now we're sitting in a cafe while he does some planning for this week. We are looking forward to the cooling weather and Fall in Qingdao! Missing the northwest leaves right about now! 

xoxo