Back to China, Opera, and Lantern Festival

We had Seth drive us to the airport early Saturday morning.  We made our flight to LA and didn't have any problems getting the flight to Shanghai.  For some reason, the flight to Shanghai made what we thought was a strange flight pattern.  We don't know the reason, but the flight course on the seat screen showed that we went from LA up the coast north clear up to Nome, Alaska, over along the coast of Asia until we were just north of the Koreas and then turned sharply west and then came down over Beijing to Shanghai.  We are aware of the Great Arc that planes take over longer distances, but this was much further north, than any of our other flights to or from China.  I'm guessing that the Olympics may have been why they avoided crossing that airspace.   What has normally been a twelve to twelve and a half hour flight was thirteen and a half hours long.

We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up from Jinan airport and our flight actually came in a half hour before the scheduled arrival time, so we were worried that we would have to wait for our taxi, but as soon as we passed through the gate, he was there waiting for us. He took us right to the van and then let us know, without speaking any English, that this other driver was going to take us back to our apartment.  We suspect that he had to wait for someone else to come in, but as long as we got back to our apartment, we didn't mind the change of drivers.

As we got closer to Jinan, the driver started going slower and slower.  We were a little concerned.  I kept watching his face through the rear view mirror so make sure he wasn't nodding off.  He seemed to still be awake but we couldn't figure out why he was going so slow.  We eventually made it back but with the speed he was going, it was about ten to fifteen minutes longer than normal.  It was 1:00 a.m. when we got home.

After sleeping in for a while, we made some breakfast and then made plans to go shopping for supplies.  Before we left China, we had to get rid of anything perishable in the refrigerator because all electricity had to be turned off in the apartment.  We bought the necessary items and then came back to finish unpacking.

Kayce had invited us to come for supper, we had bought some things from the U.S. for her, so we took them to her and had a nice supper and played some games.  We had also bought sacrament cups for Sunday's and dropped those off at the Kinghorn's apartment.  While we were playing games, David and I started yawning so much, that we decided to call it a day and head home.  I think we were in bed before 8 p.m.

Tuesday, we made plans to meet Eva for lunch near Furong Street.  That is the street that has all sorts of interesting foods to eat.  When Eva got there, we went to where she thought there was a noodle restaurant that she and her husband had visited a while back, but it wasn't there anymore, so we went to a different noodle place.  At this place, they bring you a bubbling cast iron pot (I think it would hold about a quart of broth).  Your had your choice of pork, chicken, beef or fish meat added to the broth.  They also brought you two plates, one piled high with veggies and the other had rice noodles.  When the pot of broth was brought to you, the waiter scraped the veggies and then the noodles into the boiling water.  As soon as the broth stopped bubbling and cooled for a little bit, you could eat.  It was very good!

We walked along Furong Street for a little while.  David wanted ice cream (they have some good ice cream shops along there) and Eva and I picked up a few other interesting treats, but we decided to leave and go over to Baotu Springs and walk around.  This is the time for the lantern festival and they have a display competition in the park.  They design displays that are lit up in the evenings and everything is very beautiful.  We were too early for the lit up displays, but we still walked around and had fun seeing the displays.  It started to get cold and looked like it was threatening to rain, so we left and came home.  We were pretty tired, so an early supper and off to bed before 8 p.m. again.

The displays are all made of fabric and lights.

With Eva at Baotu Springs.

This was one of my favorite displays with the peacocks.

A beautiful walkway.

These murals show the different elemets of poetry.

I love the walkways with the lanterns hanging above.

These little flowers are very fragrant.  The smell is so heady!  The story of the plum flowers is that they are strong because they are the first to blossom and can withstand the cold and the snow.

Dr. Tricia wanted to come see us on Wednesday, so we stayed around the apartment and got some things done.  When she came she brought us a huge bag of apples and then proceeded to tell us some stories of why apples were her favorite fruit.

When Dr. Tricia was a girl, her mother would store the apples in a large wooden box.  Her father's parents lived a long way away from them, but they would come visit about once a year.  Dr. Tricia's grandmother loved apples, and especially the apples that her mother grew and picked, because they were so sweet.  So, her mother would save the apples for her mother-in-law's visit.  Her mother would constantly go through the box of apples and take out those that were starting to not be firm and nice anymore.  She would give those apples to Dr. Tricia and her brother.  They were sweet and so good to eat, she said.

The other memory about apples was that, Dr. Tricia's father went away each week to work in the oil fields in Shandong province, so her mother had to work in the fields to get the food they needed to eat.  Dr. Tricia had to go out with her mother to the field and sit and entertain herself on the edge of the field while her mother worked.  She would get tired, and bored, and hungry.  When her mother stopped working, she would come over to Dr. Tricia, ask her if she was hungry and then pull out of her pocket a big apple that was cut in half for her and her mother to share.  She thought the apples were always so sweet to eat.  As she was telling us these stories, Dr. Tricia kept one of the apples in her hand and would bring it to her nose to smell the sweetness of the apples she had just brought to us.

We planned to go see the Lantern Festival at Baotu Springs on Thursday night with Kayce.  We met her at a Pizza Hut close to the Springs and had supper.  When we got to the Springs, they told us we couldn't go in.  We didn't quite understand why, but they called over a woman who spoke a little English, and she was able to get through to us that we would have had to get to the Springs before 6 p.m. to get in for free.  They have a deal where people over 60 can get in for free, but I guess it is only during the day.  We decided that we would try to come on Monday before 5:30 and go see them then.

Since we couldn't get into Baotu Springs, we walked around Quancheng Square.  The nearly full moon was lined up perfectly 

Kayce came over Thursday morning, and we worked on stuff for Relief Society, and then we went to lunch.  While we were walking her to the bus stop, David got a message from Eva about a performance that evening, and did we want to go.  We said yes, and asked if she could get a ticket for Kayce also.  She was able to get a ticket for Kayce also, so we met up at a bus stop later that evening to go meet Eva.

It turns out that it was a special performance of Shandong Province specialty opera.  Some of the singing was hard to take because it sounds rather screechy to our ears.  The costumes and backdrops were stunning, and Eva translated what the basic operas were all about.  We had to leave the performance just before the last opera finished, so that we could catch a bus home.  Some buses stop running at 9 p.m., but some go a little later.  It was a fun evening.

The background screens were so beautiful!

Each opera song told a different story from different areas of Shandong Province, the province that Jinan is the capital city of.

This song was a love story of a girl who was being escort to marry a wealthy man, but she fell in love with the man who was escoring her to the wealthy man.  It was a song about why they couldn't be together,  Sad.

This man was 84 and still had a good voice.  He sang a song about being drunk and losing all his money.

A famous 78 year old singer.  The crowd gave her lots of applause.  We loved the beautiful costumes.

We had been bugging Eva to try to get our class lists to us ever since we got back to China, but they weren't having any meetings until Thursday, so she couldn't get them before then.  It is a little frustrating about the Chinese system, that we can't seem to get information in a timely manner.  Most of it all seems so "last minute."  She was finally able to get them to us late that morning, so we decided to try that afternoon to see where our classrooms were going to be.

The university has moved their Biology and Microbiology Departments to the Qingdao Campus, so those two buildings are available for classrooms now.  That is where they put our classrooms.  The buildings are closer to our apartments, but they are really old.  We wandered around in the Microbiology building thinking that we were both in the same building.  The room that with the number that I was supposed to be in was actually a broom closet!  I don't think we had the right room...or building...  We found what we thought was David's classroom, but it was locked so we couldn't see it.

We went to a different building to see if my classroom was in there.  We tried to ask some students, but they couldn't speak enough English, however, someone went to find a teacher to help us. The man that eventually came out, was able to speak enough English to help us, and he stopped what he had been doing, and went around with us to get the keys that we needed and helped us find our classrooms.

Mine turns out to be on the fourth floor of a building that doesn't have an elevator.  I don't think my knee is going to be thanking me for being here this semester.  My classroom looks pretty much like David's, old desks, dusty, etc.  David's classroom is on the 6th floor, but he  has an elevator to get to his.  We start on Monday.  They also added another day of classes to my schedule.  I thought I would have Tuesday and Wednesday off, but I only have Wednesdays off now.

On Saturday, David and I worked on our lessons for Sunday.  He was informed Saturday morning that he was to teach the Elder's Quorum the next day, so he was in a bit of a panic.  We had to make a run to the store, and when we got back, we still had some more work to do to be ready for Sunday. We didn't feel like we wanted to go out again, so we tried to order pizza delivery.  Mike's Pizza informed us that he wasn't open because of Lantern Festival, so we had to find another option for supper.

Sunday was a good day.  We met with Kayce, Aaron, and the Kinghorn's.  Aaron brought us gifts from Vietnam.  Mine is a beautiful fan and a HUGE BAG of COCOA!  He wants me to make more delicious desserts for our Sunday lunches!  HA HA!!

This is the beautiful hand painted fan that Aaron brought from Vietnam.  He brought one for each of the women in our group.  It was really hard to choose from the fans that he brought, but this one won out!

This bag of cocoa is going to make lots of brownies, cookies and cakes for Aaron!