Jinan in Shandong Province

Jinan (济南) is the capital of Shandong province in China. It is called a "City of Springs" because of the numerous artesian springs. It is known also because of the lakes, and the weeping willows that grow along the water.

Dawei's third grandpa and grandma, who live in Jinan, took us around the city to show us famous springs. Near the springs there were lines of people waiting to get some spring water into containers. We drank water from one of the springs just to check the taste and I must say that water was fresh and cold. For water drinkers Jinan is an excellent spot:)

Trying to make a wish with a coin

Water in Baotu Spring Park

Later on we went to The Baotu Spring Park, which is the most popular of the springs in the City. "Baotu" (趵突) means "jumping and leaping" in Chinese. As you can see on the pictures below water in the spring pool looks like boiling. It is constantly moving and when you look at it for few minutes you don't want to look at other things anymore. At least that what they claimed on the tablet beside the spring;) The spring was visited by the Emperor Qian Long of the Qing Dynasty in XVIII century. A tablet with the Emperor's handwriting "Baotu Spring" has since been erected beside the spring pool.

Baotu Spring in Jinan

Other notable sites in the city are the Five Dragon Pool (五龙潭) near the Baotu Spring Park and the Black Tiger Springs (黑虎泉) on the southern city moat which we also had a chance to see.

Beside the Black Tiger Springs in Jinan

Hangzhou

Hangzhou (杭州) is the capital of Zhejiang province and is famous for its beautiful natural scenery, with the West Lake (Xī Hú, 西湖) as the most well-known location in China.

The city was a capital of the Southern Song Dynasty in 12th century.

The Venetian Marco Polo visited Hangzhou in the late 13th century and in his book he refers to the city as "beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world."

We stayed there for few days in November 2008 and we definitely are going back there again maybe sometime during summer. The city is so beautiful with its all historic relics and of course eye-catching nature.

Hangzhou is a great mystic place for holidays and people there are so honest and friendly. Both my husband and I were very pleased to stay there.

One of Hangzhou's most popular sights is West Lake which we saw on the first day. The lake covers an area of 6 square kilometers and includes some of Hangzhou's most famous historic and scenic places. We climbed hills around the lake but probably we should visit famous Buddhist temples instead like everyone else was doing. Anyway I didn’t regret that decision as we had great time.

West Lake in Hangzhou

Somewhere around the lake...

We of course went to Old China Street on He Fang Street where there are a lot of old style shops offering various kinds of souvenirs including silk and famous Longjing Tea. We bought some tea there as a gift for our relatives but later on some local people told us that we can buy better longjing tea in a local market from farmers as the one we bought already is only for tourists. Well, it is typical but at least we found out soon enough to buy good tea :)

Tea shop in Hangzhou

On He Fang Street in Hangzhou

The other place worth to see in Hangzhou is Xixi National Wetland Park located at the west part of the city. XiXi Wetland has a history of more than 1,800 years.

The park is densely crisscrossed with many watercourses, among which there are various ponds and lakes. We spent there whole day and we also took a boat there which was very interesting experience for us. The park itself is divided into few parts which most of them are for free. It is worth to take binoculars as there are many birds to see!

In a bamboo forest

View on the park

On the boat

Beiling Park in Shenyang

Beiling Park (tomb of Huang Taiji) is the biggest park in Shenyang which covers an area of 330 million sq meters and was built in 1634.
It takes about 20 minutes from the main entrance to the the Red Gate and it costs 10 yuen to get to the park.

Some people got little electric bus to the Red Gate but we decided to take a walk although it was freezing cold. This place must be beautiful in summer with all trees green.

Entrance to Beiling Park in Shenyang

Zhao Ling can be divided into three parts:

1. In the first part of the park from the large monument at the entrance to the Red Gate we saw marble pillars, stone lions, bridges, stone arches, many sculptures of dragons, tigers, lions, horses, elephants, unicorns, camels, turtles and many other buildings. I took loads of pictures there but of course I am not able to place them all here:) Anyway it is worth to see the place.

Marble pillar in Beiling Park in Shenyang

2. Central part from the Red Gate to the door of tomb of Huang Taiji. The biggest atraction for me in here were old pine trees which gave the whole place distinctive look. To get to that part we had to pay extra 60 yuen each for tickets. Behind the Red Gate there was almost nobody (tourist season was over I guess) so we had the whole place for ourselves.

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In front of Red Gate in Beiling Park

3. Zhao Mausoleum (North Tomb) - the tomb of Qing Taizong Huangtaiji and empress Boerjijite. The building combinines styles of Manchu nationality and Han nationality. Behind the building there is the tomb - manmade hill.

Qing Zhao Tomb

Shanghai

I always wanted to go to Shanghai (上海), the largest city in China but unfortunately we have been there only for 2 nights and have seen only the Bund by the bank of the Huangpu River and the 'Yuyuan Garden', a traditional garden in the Jiangnan style.
First city atraction we saw after landing in Shanghai airport was 'Yuyuan Garden'. It is really a nice place with all those small shops, little streets around and tea house in the middle, created only for tourists. There was a lot of people from all around the world and for the first time I felt relief because nobody was looking at me! I know this is silly observation but after Shenyang and Jilin where people stop talking when I am entering the restaurant;) it was a good feeling.
Shanghai is huge, fast and of course living in here is very expensive, especially for tourists. All prices are doubled or tripled for foreigners and usualy there is no option for barganing. Good I had support of my chinese husband who could get some presents cheaper;)

Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai

Yuyuan Garden by night

On the second day we went to see 'The Oriental Pearl Tower' which is located in modern Pudong district. We took a boat on Huangpu River to have better look at the Tower and other modern skyscrapers. We had great time even though the weather wasn't good.

By boat on Huangpu River

Pudong district in Shanghai

Chinese market

Shopping is the most adventurous thing here particularly for foreigners.

For me shopping in a food market was the most interesting thing of all! You can find here anything including alive silkworms, frogs and frozen sharks, and other stuff which I don’t even know names of in my mother language.

Buying clothes and shoes is a totally different thing. I was trying to buy nice shoes for winter and it was really hard to get my size (39) in women’s section. Also I had to buy some clothes in size XL which in Europe would be too big for me as I wear size M. But I must say that in China there are so many choices in shops and different cities that I think it will be very hard for me to go back to small Dublin :)

Dawei in a fruit market

Silkworms

There is one catch in here money wise. Be aware of that sellers will charge you double or even triple times for products if you are a foreigner. Thank God you can always bargain and if you are good in that you can get a fair price. Of course I am in very good position as my Chinese husband always can help me out with bargaining. We bought many little presents for my family for much cheaper price and I know that if I was alone I would pay much more for them.

Although when we visited Beijing I was shocked that they wanted me to take a taxi for 100 Yuen from the train station to the hotel that we booked when it should costs only less than 20 Yuen! I guess that a lot of rich tourists from US would pay for it but come on it is like cheating!!! People just don’t realize that. Maybe because of that I hate Beijing. It happened many times there that they wanted me to pay more for things even in a fruit stalls on the street!!! Mentality of Beijiners is so sick in this matter. In Shanghai I didn’t feel as annoyed about this thing as in Beijing.

Counting 1 to 10 in Chinese

Did you know that Chinese people count different on their hand? Well, this was very confusing for me when I was still learning numbers in Chinese and I was trying to guess number from somebody's gesture. See below how do they show numbers from 1 to 10 on their hands:)

1 (一）

2 （二）

3 （三）









4 （四）









5 （五）









6 （六）









7 (七）









8 （八）

9 （九）

10 （十）

My Family

Chinese names are really hard for me to learn and remember. In here people don't just call each other first names. They usually give kinship terms such as little sister, big brother, elder uncle and so on. So in China I am not called Monika. I am xi fu 媳妇 (daughter-in-law) or lao po 老婆 (wife). Only when you are the youngest they will call your first name.
This is the list of names I had to learn in order to communicate with my family. Don't you think it is too complicated? They are still names of my husband's friends left to remember...

• ma 妈 – mother
• ba 爸 – father
• lao 姥 – grandmother on mother's side
  
• lao ye 姥爷 – grandfather on mother's side
  
• da jiu 大舅 – elder uncle on mother's side, da jiu ma 大舅妈 – elder uncle's wife
• da yi 大姨 – elder aunt on mother's side, da yi fu 大姨夫 – elder aunt's husband
• jie 姐 – lit. elder sister, here da yi's daughter, jie fu 姐夫 – elder sister's husband, Ma Yi Ming – first name of their 2 years old son
• lao jiu 姥舅 – elder uncle on mother's side, lao jiu ma 姥舅妈 – elder uncle's wife, Tong Tong – first name of their 14 years old son
• er shu 二叔 – second uncle on father's side, er shen 二婶 – uncle's wife
• san shu 三叔 – third uncle on father's side, san shen 三婶 - uncle's wife
• si shu 四叔 - fourth uncle on father's side, si shen 四婶 - uncle's wife

My chinese family from Shenyang

Shenyang

I live in Shenyang, my husband's home city. Just want to give you some information about Shenyang 沈阳 "the north side of Shen River" in Liaoning Province. It is the largest city in northeastern China. It is located around 635 km from Beijing 北京 the capital city. Shenyang has long been reputed as "the birthplace for one dynasty and the capital for two emperors". In 1625, Nuerhachi, the first emperor of Qing dynasty, moved its capital here, and renamed it Shengjing. It was the capital of the Qing Dynasty until the relocation of the capital to Beijing in 1644. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), Shenyang known then as Mukden was the site of the Battle of Mukden from on 19 February 1905 – 10 March 1905. The Mukden Incident (18 September 1931), which gave the Japanese the pretext to create the Manchukuo state, took place near Shenyang. During the Manchukuo era (1932-1945) the city was called Fengtian. During the Japanese occupation, Shenyang was developed into a heavy industry center. Soviet forces occupied Shenyang in early August 1945 on the surrender of Japan. The Soviets were replaced by the Nationalist Chinese. During the Chinese Civil War, Shenyang remained a Kuomintang stronghold from 1946–1948. Since 1949, Shenyang became one of the most important heavy industry centers of China.

Middle Street in Shenyang (Zhong Jie)

In Shenyang there are around 7 milion people. There are a lot of minorities living here such as Koreans or even Russians. Maybe that is why when they see me they think I am Russian. By the way there are almost no non Asian looking people here so everybody stare at me. This is annoying most of the times but I think I will get use to that eventually. Nothing I can do unfortunately...

We stay in Huanggu District (皇姑区/皇姑區 Huánggū Qū) of the city with my husband’s family. Huanggu District is the site of the large, historical tomb of Huang Taiji (of the Qing Dynasty), called Beiling park 北陵公園. Beiling Park was the first city attraction I saw in Shenyang and I must say that I was impressed.

Beiling Park in Shenyang

Traffic in Shenyang

Two weeks are gone and I still cannot get use to the traffic in Shenyang. First thing that I noticed when I came here was that all the streets are very wide and very long. It is total madness to cross the street!! You can see the video below how cars, bicycles, tricycle, motorbikes and people are trying to go all at the same time. I have never seen such a mess. In general it looks like as there are no rules on the roads. Even tough pedestrians have a green light and can cross the street they still need to watch out for cars and bikes coming from right hand side. Moreover Chinese don’t use pavements for walking! They usually use both sides of the actual street and it doesn’t matter that there is a lot of cars. On the other hand cars can be found driving on the footpaths and bike lanes. They usually beep on people to move from their way!

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