China Day 3 - Guitar and DaMing Lake

Boats on DaMing Lake

Power walking group at the lake.

China – Day 3

Our University liaison, Eva was back again today to help us.  We had left the apartment to meet with another couple that came to Jinan with us and saw Eva as we were about to leave campus.  We weren’t sure that she would come to help us on Saturday, but she was there.  We had no success getting David’s iphone unlocked to use in China, so we had to go buy two cell phones.  Some of the apps are in Chinese, but since you can choose a language on there, most are in English.  

Then, we saw a place that sells guitars and since David planned to get a cheap guitar here rather than transport his expensive one from home, we found a guitar store and bought a nice one for about $100.  It has a nice sound and they threw in a strap, capo and case for that price.  We felt like it was a good deal.  As David had to try out the guitar, he was strumming and playing some of our favorites.  At one point, we had a little crowd gathered around on the outside to hear us.  The guys in the store loved to hear us sing and play and one of them wanted to give us the gift of this nice little electronic tuner because he liked us so much.  It was a fun time on the streets of Jinan. 

Eva helped us get the rest of the teacher things moved over from the apartment that we had left yesterday.  Then we picked up Stan and Nancy Pace and she drove us to DaMing Lake here in the center of Jinan.  We spent an hour or so walking the free part of the park and it was beautiful.  Notice the pictures!  We plan to sometime take a ride on the boats that are there.   The large building was built during the Yuan Dynasty and a famous Chinese poet lived there for a long time.    

At the park, we were standing in a square admiring the lake, when all of the sudden a guy leading a rather large group of people that were walking fast and two by two motioning for us to stand back.  We did when we saw what was about to descend upon us.  They were not menacing in anyway, they were exercising!  They probably walk this square every night and some of them had fun each time they walked past at first saying “Hello” to us and we said “Ni Hao” back to them.  They thought it was great that we were responding to them.  As you can see, I got their picture.

We did some shopping on our own today without the assistance of Eva and we are starting to feel a little more confident.  We saw some steamed buns that people were buying and Nancy wanted to know what was in them.  We asked some young people near us.  They didn’t know the words for pork and shrimp, so I brought out my little cue cards and pointed to the words that I thought they were saying (it was pork) and then we had to find the word for shrimp!  It was a fun adventure and I am sure if they write in their journals as I do in my, this incident will be recorded by them as well as me!

Supper turned out to be KFC and that was another fun experience in ordering.  They have a plastic covered menu at the counter.  I was able to point to what we wanted (they only had pepsi to go with a combo meal and we wanted some of the black current juice that they also offered for a little price more), so I was able to make our choices.  There was a problem with what we chose in that if was going to take 10 minutes to cook.  They wanted to let us make a choice of either ready-made chicken sandwiches or to wait for it.  The girl was totally frustrated in not being able to tell us that and not finding someone who worked there that would talk to us, she took out a napkin, wrote “10 min” on it.  I totally got it and we were so hungry by this point that we just took the ready sandwiches.  Communication may be frustrating at times, but if you are patient, you can do it!  Kind of a metaphor for life…

Shandong University - Central Campus where we will be teaching.  I have one class in this building and I am hoping it is not on the top floor unless they have an elevator in this building.  One of our colleagues on another campus has to climb 7 flights of stairs to get to her classrooms.

Pagoda at DaMing Lake.  

Visitor Center at DaMing Lake

Part of the lake.

Building that was on the east side of the lake.

All the little children that are not potty trained wear these pants that are open on the bottom.  Not sure what they do when they are just tiny and have to go, but this is what they do here.

The new gymnasium on our campus.  Haven't been inside yet, but they say it is huge with a lot of amenities.

Interesting tree in the park at DaMing Lake.