Monthly Archives: March 2005

Easter

Well, as everyone knows, it is Easter. In China however, people don’t get these days as holidays. That means that I am at work. I don’t mind though, since if I wasn’t working I would just be sitting around anyway. Yesterday was the last day that Nathan’s parents were in Jinan. So they wanted to do something in Jinan so I went with Nathan and his parents for a walk up the mountain. I thought that the walking was some good exercise. In case you are wondering, the mountain is called “qianfoshan” or å?ƒä½›å±±. That translates to 1000 Budha mountain. I brought along my camera so you can see some pictures.

For supper on Sunday we all got invited by Emma to go out for supper. It was really really good. My favorites were something like pumpkin ball things, and the lotus root things. The place we went to was really expensive looking. There were, I’d imagine 40 greeters at the door that welcome you when you arrive. Then when you are being escorted to your eating room there are more greeters every 10 feet. It was really strange and something that would cost a fortune to do in Canada.

Now today, Monday. That means back to work. I don’t know entirely what the day is going to bring but I’m sure I will get something to work on.

Updated Blog Version

I thought I might as well upgrade the blog. I think you could have figured it out on your own by the different look. Hopefully you enjoy it.

In other news, Nathan’s parents are here. It has been strange having people here. I haven’t done anythng much since they have gotten here. Nathan took them out for supper yesterday. Today we went to RT-mart and bought some food. Not much though. . The only thing we bought that I don’t think we would normally buy would be some vegetables and dumplings. Dumplings were a good suggestions since they are really easy to make. All you do is put them in with some boiling water. They tasted alright, although you never knew what the middle of each dumpling was going to bring.

In news unrelated to me or China. Has anyone else been watching tv. . My favorites at the moment are Amazing Race and Survivor. I never thought I would ever say that in my lifetime. My favorite part of this season is how one team is totally dominating over the other team. I think it is hilarious that the one team is constantly losing during the elimination rounds. The one tribe only has 3 members left. Enough about that tough.. My other favorite show is Amazing Race. This season is starting off really awesome. The best team ever has got to be Rob and Amber. They are constantly going through the race in the most unorthodox fashion. They are bribing people off, getting help from the police, and stealing taxis from other teams. I never imagined that scheming and this kind of behaviour would fall into the Amazing Race. I just hope that if Rob and Amber ever do end up in last place it will be a Non-Elimination round. I’d also like to thank my brother Ben for all the hard work he has been doing in helping me to be able to enjoy all this great television

Delayed News

I’m sorry about the delays in updating. Last week was an interesting time. On Monday the 14th, a delegation came from Regina. There were 3 people from University of Regina, and 3 more people from the City of Regina. It was interesting to be in a meeting to be meeting the mayor of Regina in Jinan, China! I thought it was funny and laughed in my head. I uploaded some pictures from the visit. Also, to my surprise, on Tuesday afternoon, we went touring with the delegation. They visited Jinan University. I thought this was really neat. We went to the University to listen to the mayor speak for an hour about Regina to the students. After this, we left the classroom and went outside where the students got to ask questions. I thought it was really interesting the questions they were asking. The most common questions were, “what are you doing in China”, “how long have you been in China”, “what are some things that are different in China that in Regina”. They all seemed very surprised and excited to see us. Also, we got to goto a meeting between the Mayor of Regina and the president of the Jinan University. This was the first time I had been to a meeting that required the use of interpreters. I also uploaded some pictures of a model they had of the Jinan University. There was a lot of construction going on here. After this we had a really good meal but we didn’t get to eat with the delegation. We ate with some other people. It was really really good food!

After this eventful day, not a lot happend. So it has been a couple weeks of more working now. I finally decided to update since today should be a holiday. At least it is a holiday in Canada 🙂 I don’t mind working on Good Friday though. I am thinking that spring is here in Jinan for sure. The weather always seems to be quite nice out. Although there will occassionally be a cool breeze. I am enjoying the lack of snow and ice that I keep hearing about on the news and weather reports for Regina. I have uploaded some pictures of some spring flowers that just came out into bloom. I think that the trees should be leafing out soon since they look like they are budding. People in the office say that Jinan has a short spring so that means that summer is right around the corner. It should be interesting, and hot!

Not much else to talk about. Nathan is picking his parents up at the train station today. They are going to be here for the weekend. They are on a tour across China. Next weekend, Nathan and I will be going to Shanghai to visit them there. I think this should be really interesting since I have never been to Shanghai before. I will make sure to take my camera since I know there will be stuff I can take pictures of.

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Chinese markets

This past weekend we got to go DVD shopping for the first time. I think the government is trying to crackdown on the sale of pirated dvd’s because we had to goto 3 or 4 places to finally get someone that sells them. So we finally found a store that sells them. . They had a list of dvd they had but unfortunately it was in Chinese. So the people that were helping us, Clark and his wife from the office, got one of the sales people to bring out the dvds so we could go through and pick them out by hand. The dvd’s were kind of strange though. . they said they were “HDVD”, and each DVD had 4 or 5 movies per disc. I initially thought they might be mpeg4 but it turns out they are like VCD or mpeg1. This means the quality is lower but it is still playable in a regular dvd player. I didn’t end up buying any from the market but Nathan did. For some reason mine and his computers don’t seem to like some of the discs, but other people with Chinese made drives will read them. This seems really strange. After we went shopping for dvd’s we walked back to CVIC. We stopped at RT-mart and bought some food. We then went back to Clark and Janice’s apartment there they made the food. It was really good. After that we went for a walk over by Shandong University. It was an interesting day.

Today, Sunday, I basically just sat around the apartment all day. I washed some clothes but basically just watched tv all day. It was a good relaxing day.

Spring?

I just thought I’d give a little update to my adventure. I haven’t really done much in the past couple weeks so I’ll just give a quick summary. We went and bought a new pot and new frying pan for our apartment. The old ones were sort of falling apart and needed to be replaced. So we spent what would be $13 canadian for new ones. They should work out well and maybe increase our choice of foods. So far the only thing we have cooked has been noodles. Anyone is capable of making those. Just boil the water add the noodles and cook them. The same time we bought the new cooking instruments we also bought some cheese slices, margarine, and some ham. So I expect for us to be able to make some sandwichs maybe. . who knows. Then today, Lily from work led us at lunch time just down the street 30 seconds and we bought some eggs. I’m not sure the prices in Canada but we bought 10 eggs for $0.50 Canadian or 3.5 yuan. I’ve never really shopped before but there were all sorts of eggs. Nathan didn’t want to stray from the normal white eggs, but there were also brown eggs. The brown ones seemed look larger than the white ones. It doesn’t matter what the outside looks like its whats in the middle that counts. Well I better get back to work.