Saturday, May 19

Playmobil reigned for two hours this morning; we were up by 6 am, too early for our planned outings.  Why didn’t we bring more horses, a baby, and some fences?  The best laid plans of mice and men…

Despite the limitations, playmobile is fun!

At a decent hour, we walked down the hill (opposite from the direction we head to the bus, to downtown, etc) toward what we understood to be an outdoor market and the store Lotus (compared to Walmart by one).  I took some photos of the community from this perspective; there are quite a few of the high rises, more than I had realized, and at least 50 buildings within its bounds.  To the left one can see the next community, below and across the street is another, and, to the right across the street yet another. 

The street scene is colorful, busy, a bit unkempt and disorderly, and full of interest.  We passed a group of young women in pink uniforms being addressed, out on the sidewalk, by ‘the boss.’  I think they are waitresses.  Next to them was a long line of patrons waiting for the bank to open.  A woman walking by had an interesting t shirt on—the Chinese tend to wear clothes with a lot of words and/or designs on them.  We saw nut roasters, KFC Chicken—which are legend in Qingdao!, and some really beautiful wooden molds.  We took that photo so that we can ask a Chinese person what they are used for; maybe something I can cook! 

The street scene

Waitresses, it seems?

The beautiful wooden molds

A nut vendor!

The sunny morning fast gave way to clouds rolling in; in the photo you can see the cloud touching the top of the mountain—I found out the name:  Fu Shan (shan = mountain).  Over the course of the next several hours, the mountain completely disappeared behind the clouds/fog. By mid afternoon, it was a grey day with a very low sky, a bit cooler than we had hoped.

Fu Shan with cloud cover

Today we ran into Hamid and his kids (spouse of the teacher I am substituting for), and later, the teacher—Soraya—and her daughter getting off the bus at just the moment when I needed some directional assistance!, and, still later, at the park, Subrina, the TA from my class!  In a city of 8 million, that seems pretty amazing!

Our big event for the day was meeting Ms. Alice, the second grade teacher, and her husband Nick, at Zhong Shan Park, the ‘Central Park’ of Qingdao.  We had some bus confusion, but managed to get ourselves going in the right direction.  As we got within about 3 stops of the Park, I worried that we’d miss the name on the hard-to-hear sound system.  So I asked a young man getting on the bus if he spoke English; he demurred as to skill level, but willingly listened to my question and with help from his friends said “follow me.”  So we knew we were in good hands just to get off when he did.  At one point, a friend prompted him to say “next’ so that we knew the stop was imminent.  It all worked out well; we got there early, and then were happy to have Maci and Danielle, and dad Allen, arrive too—it’s a gathering!  While we waited, Julia purchased a balloon art item:  an alien who can be worn like a backpack—very cute!  She was thrilled with it and the wide space for scootering. 

The park was bustling!

The backpack balloon creature...

...and its happy owner!

Once we all gathered, we wandered into the Park and followed paths somewhat randomly.  It was pretty, but not remarkable, and we were all a bit distracted by the social obligations of chatting.  There were some amusement rides; the girls tried a few.  And there was beautiful cotton candy made freshly for the girls, at twice the size of their heads!  They loved it, and got themselves and everything else sticky!  We didn’t opt for the Zoo—Julia and I will enjoy doing that as a separate outing, on a sunny day, I hope!  There were enough hills to allow Julia to be glad she had brought the scooter. 

Trying a ride with Maci

Wow!!

A rare photo of both of us - a lovely day in the park!

At 4ish we split up, and Julia and I went to dinner with Ms. Alice and Nick, at the Kiwi Café, a New Zealand restaurant!  Julia got an enormous hamburger and a single hash brown potato (how does one answer the question “how many hash browns do you want?”)  She was a well behaved child at a table full of adults; how cooperative of her!  She got to write on the wall, a la the Medici Café in Chicago.  Ms. Alice did a great job of negotiating between her role as Julia’s teacher and her role as a nice person providing us with some social experiences!  I think she is going to be a wonderful teacher for Julia in the next 4 weeks. 

We ended the meal with the last slice of chocolate cheesecake split 4 ways!  The chef, an acquaintance of the Australians, came out for a chat.  As we were leaving, later, I realized that he and his sous chefs were sitting at a table, eating fresh Chinese food for dinner! Pretty humorous!

We got some tips in map reading from our friends, and placed the key sites on the map for perspective.  They also made offers for other outings, for dinner and for social opps—how nice!  They are going to get me a ‘vpn’ (whatever that might be) so that I can have wider internet access, beyond the Great Wall that blocks sites from China (such as the blog, which I cannot see).  We talked about the feasibility of Julia and I going to Beijing for a weekend, and getting to the Great Wall; they were practical and supportive about how that might really happen.  We all enjoyed the day; Julia ended it by industriously dismantling her balloon creation, re-twisting parts of it, and generally destroying it.  It was a very satisfying process for her! And I was hard put to tell her to stop it. 

The adults talked a lot about China and learning to live with it.  I was curious to talk with them because they’ve been here for nearly two years, so their perspective is quite different; and they plan to stay for two more years.  Alice is deeply committed to future work with Chinese special needs children, a population that is not only underserved but possibly even mistreated in China.  And Nick is working on a degree in Community Health.  We had a lot of shared interests, which made for nice conversation.  The topic of China is preoccupying!  Alice allowed as to how it is a bit isolating to be an ex-pat here; there’s ‘not much to do,’ she said, compared to their lives in Brisbane.  It’s hard to find social contacts with the Chinese, apparently, although they belong to a small church community of interdenominational members including some Chinese. 

While they described themselves as ‘easy to please,’ they like other non-Chinese said it’s hard to find edible food at restaurants.  Chinese food is ‘smelly’ especially compared to American food, with spices we aren’t familiar with.  There’s a lot of Western food here, hamburgers, pizza, and fast food restaurants—but mostly this food is a poor imitation of what we expect.  And yet all the Westerners are on the lookout for this food—for Oreos and Hershey bars and Lipton tea and Skippy Peanut butter and ‘real’ ice cream, for Papa John’s pizza that tastes exactly like the stuff at home, for a quiet time in a Starbucks—and they provide clear guidance/warning about what is worth eating:  don’t eat at KFC, under any circumstances (like I would!).  The only place to get non-sweet bread is at the Japanese bakery (why?!).  Eat at Trattoria Verde which serves great Italian food made by the renowned Japanese chef (really!).  Eat the kebabs/don’t eat the kebabs. Soak greens for fifteen minutes in salted tap water (oops!  Ate green leaf lettuce yesterday that wasn’t soaked!  And, tap water? Wait, isn’t that bad for me?).   It’s expensive and/or dirty to shop at Jusco/Hisense/Lotus/RT Mart/Carrefoure. 

All of that is true at various times of the day or week.  It is Julia and my goal to get to all of these places and experience daily life at least as far as food shopping is concerned; some of you know that I love to grocery shop, so this is really a satisfying way for me to get a feel for Chinese life.  There are no canned beans in the Chinese parts of the groceries, and the imported beans, what few there are, are expensive.  So today I bought some dried beans to soak; there are so many beautiful varieties in greens, reds and browns.  Although I have said repeatedly that I didn’t come to China to cook and wash dishes, yet, we need to eat and we can’t really eat peanut butter and nutella for two meals a day and pasta for the third (although we’ve given it a good try so far)!  I need a guide in the vegetable section to tell me what I’m looking at.  We passed a cart selling roasted sweet potatoes outside the Park; Alice recommended them as deliciously soft and roasty.  I have been craving sweet potatoes (a major food group for vegans), but I can’t say I was drawn to eating these, cooking out on the city street, prepared and cleaned in who knows what way—imagine!  And this advice came from the same person who said soak your greens! The contradictions we are all living at any one time are amusing. 

A happy girl riding home at the end of a good day