The last of our adventures in the "Middle Kingdom"...

So, while Amy was teaching all day, Noel and I wandered around Qingdao. :) It's hard to believe I'm now writing about what took place almost 2 weeks ago.

It was restful. And living "in community" again with Amy and Noel was wonderful. It's funny how quickly doing life with people you love becomes so normal in so little time. It didn't feel like I was spending just a week in Qingdao, it felt like I was building a life there. As Noel and I aquainted ourselves with Qingdao and Chinese and the other teachers at MTI (Amy's school) and Amy's cleaning lady Ling ling (and Amy joining us after school), Qingdao quickly began to take another shape of "home" rather just being "Amy's home".

Here are some pictures from last week to give you an idea of more of our adventures together. :)
Playing taxi tag. :)


On top of "Little Fish" Mountain. We climbed to the top floor of the now empty temple and got a beautiful view of Qingdao at dusk.


At the top of the temple with 2 of Amy's fellow teachers, Jenny Lee and Heather.


Buying pearls... for several dollars. Yes. That's dollars, NOT 100s of dollars. I've never seen so many pearls in my life!! There were stalls upon stalls of bundles of pearls of every shape, size, and color you can imagine. And when you thought you had seen all of them, they brought out MORE bundles. Craziness.


Noel and I discovered a fool-proof way of drawing a crowd in China. grins Here's a peek at our masterpiece. ;)

"Antebellum South meets Egypt... in China" grins

Noel's last full day in Qingdao (last Friday), we caught a bus to a national park mountainous area called Laoshan (shan = mountain(s)). We took the bus until it went no farther, hopped off, immediately got lots of propositions from taxi drivers who wanted to take us to places we couldn't understand, found a hiking map and started walking. It was beautiful. Although pretty hazy the majority of the week, by Friday it had started clearing up a bit, so we got some nice albeit a tad hazy, views.


Although it doesn't look like it, the buildings in the background are actually public restrooms.
What would our experience in China have been without a little Engrish, right? ;)

And that thing about drawing crowds... well, you don't have to build sandcastles to do it... walk around and you'll be just fine. grins We met this group of wonderful kids (and their teacher) crossing a bridge. :) They waved and said "come join" and we thought 'hm. nice place to eat lunch... pretty water, fun rocks, and plenty of space so we won't intrude on their party.' It was a nice thought. ;) Meet our friends, the Chinese Tourism Class of Qingdao University (1 of them).

We started making our way down the rocks and a couple of them came to meet us and "help" us. grins It was humorous. One girl took my hand and said 'This way.' 'Step on this rock.' 'Now this one.' :) When we made it over to the group, the whole gang of them clapped and cheered for us. It was insane. What do you say to that? Noel and I laughed. :) They then asked us to sit down, and formed a circle of sorts around us. They peppered us with questions like 'What's your hobby? Do you like China? Do you like Chinese food? Where are you from? What did you study? Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? How old are you? Why are you here? WILL YOU SING A SONG FOR US?' hahahaha To give us a little encouragement, one girl stood up and sang a Chinese pop Christmas song. I was blushing and Noel was bowing out gracefully. And then I remembered an experience I had while in Cuba... Our group was asked the same question, and no one would sing. I remember how disappointed my Cuban friends were afterward... It was a part of their culture to share something of that sort, and no one would. And so... I decided to swallow my shyness and embarrassment and sing. And they loved it. :) And I resumed being shy and embarrassed when I finished, and then I got over it. grins But then they convinced Noel to sing! hehe He sang part of a song that was in his head and when he finished they clapped and cheered. What a crazy afternoon! We made our way together down the rest of the "trail" (wide man-cut and laid stone walkway) until we came to our bus. They sent us off with a warm farewell and we were on our way. And starving because we had yet to eat our lunch. :) And of course, what better way to end the day than meeting Sam, newly arrived from Thailand! Joined by Amy, we began introducing Sam to Qingdao. Saturday we sent Noel off. *sniff* :) And I couldn't imagine ending my time in China better than being able to spend time with Amy and Sam together. Pictures to follow - as soon as Sam emails me them. :)