Adventures in Jinan

This past week, Curtis and I were invited by our friends, Jerrod and Rachael, to join them for a day trip to Jinan. We had never heard of Jinan, but we happily agreed to go... because everyone knows that if you say "no" to a day trip, there's a good chance that all you'll end up doing instead is watch an entire season of Cake Boss on Netflix.

So I've heard.

Turns out that Jinan is the capital of Shandong province, and is located about 250 miles south of Beijing. Apparently it is known throughout China as the "City of Springs." It has several beautiful parks filled with weeping willows that are built around lakes fed by natural spring water.

Lots of prettiness.

While we did spend the majority of our day wandering through these lovely parks and basking in all that nature-y goodness that we don't get a whole lot of in Beijing, there are other things that I will remember much more clearly from this day of adventure.

Here they are for your perusal:

1) Jerrod ordered this plate of silkworms for lunch.

Silkworms are the pupae of moths and not actually worms. Knowing this does not make it any less horrifying.

2) Curiosity trumped disgust, and I ate half of a silkworm. (Handy tip: If you ever decide to eat only half a silkworm, never ever look inside to see what's in the other half.)

Here is Curtis looking on lovingly as I eat my first silkworm. This is pretty much one of my favorite photos of all time.

4) An hour after eating the silkworms, Jerrod grew red welts all over his face and neck.

This is not Jerrod. This is Will Smith in the movie Hitch. But this maybe COULD HAVE been Jerrod if we didn't run into a pharmacy so he could get some Chinese meds to get his face under control.

5) This building:

Located in the city center, we couldn't help but notice that whoever built this enormous structure was clearly making up for something.

6) What would Sylvester Stallone look like as a giant Buddha?

Obviously, that's what the makers of this Buddha wanted to know. At one time, Jinan was the historical center of Buddhist culture for the whole province, so there are lots of Buddhas everywhere. This here is the only one we saw that resembled Sly.

7) Riding home in style after our eventful day.

They ran out of the cheap seats on the train home, so we ended up doing the 2-hour ride in first class, which was AMAZING. If you're ever wondering if you are in first class, just ask yourself these questions: 1) Am I wearing brand new house slippers that were just now given to me? 2) Could I comfortably get into a fetal position if I wanted to? 3) Are there free snacks? If you answered "YES!" to these questions, then CONGRATULATIONS! You are officially livin' it up, China-style. 

Weekend in Xi'an: Terra-Cotta Warriors, baby!

If you live in China, one thing you must do is always carry a package of moist towelettes. 

Another thing you must do is visit the Army of Terra-Cotta Warriors. 

This past weekend, Curtis and I hopped on a high-speed train (it traveled around 300 km/h) with a couple of friends to visit Xi'an, the city closest to the Terra-Cotta army. It also happens to be the city which marks the beginning of the Silk Road. 

The city of Xi'an itself is surprisingly modern and bustling with a population of about 8.5 million. Back in the 10th century, this was supposedly The Place To Be, and there are still areas and sights that hint at its ancientness and former glory days.  We spent our first day checking a few of these out...

The Muslim Quarter 

It was fascinating to wander through the narrow streets filled with vendors selling all kinds of snacks and souvenirs. We sampled some peanut candy and dried persimmons because my guidebook told us to. They were pretty good. Then we stopped for lunch at a Muslim restaurant, and dined on a variety of seasoned veggies, cold noodles with spicy sesame sauce, and flatbread stuffed with beef. Only later did it occur to us that the beef sandwiches were probably purchased off the street and served to us. I spent half of that night lying in bed, wondering how grumpy my stomach would be about this. Happily, my belly was a total trooper and did not object at all to its first encounter with street meat. 

The Great Mosque

Tucked away in the Muslim Quarter is one of the largest mosques in China. Founded in the 8th century, it's a beautiful blend of Chinese and Islamic architecture. We snapped a whole bunch of photos and soaked in the peacefulness behind its walls. 

The City Wall

One thing China seems to do exceptionally well is build really impressive walls. We had a hard time finding our way onto the wall, and by the time we did, it was almost dark. However, we were in for a grand surprise because they lit everything up when the sun went down, which made for an extra gorgeous two-hour stroll. Oh. And that bottom left pic is us pretending to bang on a drum at the bottom of the wall. Because it was there. 

The next day was Terra-Cotta Warrior day and we could not wait! After all, these 2200-year-old warriors have been featured a gazillion times in places like Time, Smithsonian, and National Geographic magazines. They are the freakin' supermodel rock stars of ancient relics.

Here are the pics to prove we were there. Or that we're really good at Photoshop. Kidding! We were totally there. 

Not surprisingly, the story behind this army of warriors is incredibly interesting. It's the tomb of Qin Shi Huang Di, China's first emperor who died in 210 B.C. Apparently this army of 6000 soldiers (in addition to horses, musicians, acrobats etc.) was created to protect him in the afterlife. It is believed to have taken 700,000 men 36 years to build the grave, and each of the warrior's faces is unique. While Emperor Qin Shi Huang did a heckuva lot to advance China, he was not known for being the nicest guy. After work on the tomb was completed, the artisans and laborers were essentially buried alive so they wouldn't tell anyone about where it was or what was inside. Then grass and trees were planted on the mound to make it look like a regular ol' hill. All I can say is that I am very thankful to my last employer who just had me sign non-disclosure forms when they didn't want me spilling any secrets. Jeebus. 

Before catching our train back to Beijing, we tried to visit the Wild Goose Pagoda. It's a Buddhist pagoda in southern Xi'an known for it's height and square shape. We meandered outside the gates before realizing that we were running out of time, so we took a few pics and went to hail us a taxi! 

By the way, you should know that pretty much all the taxis in Xi'an take a half hour break at around 4pm. They love this break and will not take you anywhere if there is even a possibility it will make them late for their break. They do not care about you almost missing your train at all. 

You should definitely remember this for the next time you are in Xi'an.  

Day trip to Chuandixia

Curtis and I learned a very important lesson over the weekend:
When in China, don't even try to do anything during a Chinese holiday. This is because no matter what the holiday is, you essentially have 1.3 billion people trying to be somewhere other than wherever they are at the moment.

Naturally, mayhem ensues.

This past weekend was the nationally celebrated Qingming Festival, a.k.a. Tomb Sweeping Day in China. Since this was not noted in the Office Max calendar I purchased in Kansas City before we left, I only found this out when Curtis came home from work on Friday and told me one of his co-workers mentioned it in passing. "It has something to do with people showing respect to their ancestors... I think they go and tend to grave sites or something like that."

This was great news! After all, we had a big weekend planned of going to Ikea to get more essentials for our apartment, and we had scheduled our first day trip to a nearby village. Now we would obviously have everything to ourselves because the 25-35 million people with whom we share this city would all be dusting tombstones!

Isn't it so amazing when your new country conspires to make your weekend even better than you had planned???

On Saturday we learned that apparently another way of showing respect to one's ancestors is by having a shopping day at Ikea. All of Beijing was at Ikea when we got there. We had to literally push and shove our way through a sea of people in order to get our mixing bowls, coasters, and Swedish meatballs. Thank gawd they also have wine.

After such a stressful shopping trip we could not wait to get out of the city center for our day trip to the village of Chuandixia. We woke up at the very crack of dawn on Sunday with big smiles and lots of cheerfulness. Let me tell you that nothing can wipe a smile off of my face quicker than a packed subway car at 7am on a Sunday. I was squished in on all sides by people who smelled like their last meal had been garlic soaked in garlic. No bueno.

Thankfully, this longish story has a mostly happy ending.

I will fast forward (through the horrifically horrifying traffic we endured) to say that Chuandixia is a charming, old-timey little village nestled in the mountains with stone-paved streets, steep and narrow stairways, and courtyard homes. It was founded during the Ming Dynasty (i.e. a really long time ago) by the Han family, and is currently home-sweet-home to about 93 full-time residents. Curtis and I met some really nice people, did some hiking, breathed some fresh air, and ate a lovely meal.

Here are the pictures to prove that Tomb Sweeping Day did not completely ruin our weekend:

Gotta love the warning sign. Although we cherish our lives, we did end up choosing to climb some of the wild mountains that surround this village. And we even lived to tell of it!

We enjoyed a lunch of locally-grown food before spending a few hours exploring and hiking. There are a bunch of tiny temples around town and that is me standing awkwardly in front of one.

Cool details everywhere! The top right photo is the inside of what was once home to the wealthiest person in the village. The bottom-right photo is some rooftop weeds that were being kind of show-offy with their prettiness.

 This is us on our climb up the wild mountains to get a better look at the village. The guy with the broken ankle did great on his first post-surgery hike!

 These were some of the friendly people we day-tripped with. Curtis could not resist having a post-hike street food snack. The smell of roasting corn and sweet potatoes was amazing!

I would like to add that we did pass by several cemeteries on the road to and from Chuandixia and they were all pretty much empty. Clearly everyone in China needs to get on Wikipedia (like I did!) to find out where they're supposed to be on Tomb Sweeping Day.

Ready or not, here we go...

So I guess I'm pretty good at being wrong.

For example, after my first date with my husband about a year ago, I spent a month avoiding him because I didn't think it was going to go anywhere.

Oopsie.

And when I planned a big trip to Asia in 2012, I was 1000% sure that my little three-day sojourn in Beijing, China was my ONCE IN A LIFETIME opportunity to see The Awesomest Wall On Earth and munch on a few scorpions. I'm not great with numbers, but I think 1000% sure is really, really sure.

In about a week, we will be moving to Beijing.
Moving there.
Like, to live.
Wut.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm going to blog about this unexpected adventure because:
1) I'm quitting my dreamy writing job so I will probably have a fair amount of time on my hands and unused creativity in my brain and 2) I have a feeling that life's about to take a turn for the interesting and I kinda want to document it for myself and anyone else who feels like following along.

Am I totally ready for this enormous move to the other side of our planet? Not so much. I feel like I'm about to plunge off the end of a crazy-high diving board-- really excited, but also scared outta my mind (and suddenly overcome with a nagging urge to pee).

So for the next week I'm pretty much going to just be bouncing on the end of that board, working up the courage to take a really deep breath and jump into that big ol' Mandarin-speaking, dumpling-eating, everything-is-new-to-me world.

Man oh man, this is gonna be quite the journey.

Pretty sure I'm not wrong about that.