Chinglishly In Love

Sunday, April 26, 2015

China episode 3 -- Lao Shan and hot springs

For the most part, we have been hanging out around Sharon's home town, visiting family and doing local stuff in the town and city. We really wanted to get and out do one big trip, and I'm glad we were able to make it happen.

There is a large mountain range about 3 hours from Sharon's house. It's unique because it's right on the coast. I believe it's the highest mountain range in all of China that is right next to the ocean. It's also a national park. It's about an hour away from a large coastal city of ~5-8 million called Qingdao (where we flew into), which is most famous internationally for it's Tsingdao beer.

We drove with Sharon's mom, one of her mom's younger sisters (called "3rd Aunt"), and her cousin ChaoChao and his wife XiaoQian. I think people went with us to try and help us out and be a guide, and Sharon's mom even called in a friend's husband from QingDao to meet us on the road and escort us to the mountain. This sort of highlights an interesting part of Chinese culture, calling in favors to get things done and hesitance to go out and do things independantly. It was all a very nice gesture and it was great to have Sharon's mom and aunt there to help with the kids. It also got to be a headache at times not being able to be independant, but that's OK.

It was nice that Nokia maps works on my phone here. I took screen shots of our route home.

Here's the first hotel we stayed in. We all squeezed into a suite with 6 twin beds for $60 a night.

On our way to our first hike

National parks are very expensive in China. This one had a daily entrance fee of 90 Chinese dollars, or over $15 US for anyone over 1.1 meters tall. It's also common for there to be large discounts for tour groups. Someone on the street sold us a package deal, or so we thought. Turns out we were escorted on some rough trails through a side entrance of the park that the vendors and peddlers use to bypass the main entrance.

Climbing up the stairs with the other vendors

We finally got to the real park, which was meticulously paved with cement and granite.

This park had a loop which we tried to do, but the elevation was larger than we expected. We were short on daylight and water and had to head back. Enoch climbed a ton of elevation all by himself.

Michael got tired and threw a tantrum

The next day we drove under the mountain via a large tunnel and then around to the other side of the park to a site called Yang Kou. This side faced the ocean. Michael was tired and elected to stay with Sharon's mom and aunt, and it ended up just being Enoch, Sharon, and me that went hiking. I hope Enoch remembers his special day hiking alone with mom and dad in China.

We bought tickets for the chair lift for $5 per adult. We were all tired from the day before and it was well worth it.

This is the character Shou, which means long life

Top of the chairlift, about halfway up the mountain

The trail ended up going through a bunch of caves, which was fun

Enoch liked this outlook at Turtle Head Rock

Enoch loved climbing over all the granite rocks by himself

The park police got mad at me for trying to climb up some rocks. I told him that I could read the sign and that it said not to go past the fence... but he wasn't persuaded.

This was actually 2/3 down the mountain, but it got really misty. It made for a fun, mystic environment

This rock is supposed to look like a lion's head

Some really old Daoist temple

After hiking this day, we drove straight to "Hot Springs Town". I was envisioning something natural / outdoorsy. Instead, the town pipes the natural hot spring water and hotels use it for swimming pools and spas. It was fun to swim with everyone.

On this side of the street alone there were 12 nearly identical hotels lined up, all offering hot spring baths. We stayed in a larger one for about $50 per room that offered large spas and swimming pools

I got made at them because they made us by swimming caps for $1 US to swim in the pool. Apparently your hair falls out if you don't use them.

Took a few pictures of the spa areas (the only convenient pictures to take were of inactive spas that didn't have hot water, so no steam)

The whole group of us (-me)

The whole trip was only 2 nights and 3 days, but it was exhausting. We've traveled many thousands of miles over the past 6 months and are ready for a long rest and routine.

No I didn't let Sharon keep sleeping like this

Monday, April 13, 2015

China episode 2- life changing trip

This China trip has been a life changing trip for me and my family.

Since I am not pregnant and more relaxed this time, I am more in a peaceful mind to build a relationship with my mom. The more time I get to spend with her, the more I get to know her, the more I realized that she is a wonderful person. I know that mother-daughter relationship is a given in most circumstances, but not mine. I have been bitter and maybe even hateful my entire childhood and youth for not having anybody there for me when needed, and I can feel that this trip has melted the ice wall I've built in between me and my parents. I can finally accept that my parents had to do what they needed to do to make a living and "forgive" them for missing out on my childhood. When I didn't have bitterness in my heart, I found them lovable, generous, forgiving, compassionate and caring. They care for me, not because it's their responsibility, but because they "LOVE" me. I guess it takes me being a parent and facing life choices to understand the choices my parents made. I have been rethinking my life choice recently, specifically about going to law school. I have forgotten my family when I made the choice. It appears to me that I am making the similar choice my parents made, to choose to miss out a lot on my kids's childhood, the only difference is that there is no need for me to do so to make a living. I know Sam has been supportive of whatever I want to do as long as I think it's right for me, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's right for our family. We are finally done with the stressful students' life, and starting to pay off our debts, and now I want to bring our family back to the stressful life again. Assume it's going to be stressful for me because I have to try harder than most students to make up the language disadvantage. How much stress is going to be put on our family? My poor husband and kids are going to be the ones suffer the most and I will be missing out a lot on their daily life, be not a help but a burden for many years down the road. ( I am in no way judging working parents here, everybody's circumstances is different and I have no right to judge. )

Some friends came to visit us at my parents' house with their kids. For most of those families, both parents had to work to pay for housing and make a living. Both salaries are very much needed. Their kids had to be sent to school at a very young age if being taken care of by grandparents is not an option. I am so lucky to have the luxury and a choice to stay home. It's nice to change point of view sometimes, to put things into prospective.

Even though I've thought through the whole thing, it's still hard to say goodbye to my 2 months' work, pages of notes, half studied 600-page book and lots of drill sets. I feel like I have wasted not only my time but Sam's sacrifice for taking care of kids for me so I could study. Sam explained to me the "Sunk cost fallacy" and it does make sense.

And the best news of the trip is that my mom may be coming to the US to visit me earlier next year! We have never talked about actual plans before but this time, we talked about booking flight tickets and applying for passport and visa. Its a big step in our relationship and I am super excited! I know that deep down I am always that little girl fighting for my mom's attention and now I have won. All the bitterness for her not being here for my babies' births have all gone out of the window. I am a happy little girl!!

May need to leave these in China so I can fit more Chinese children's books in my suitcase

My parents bought the apartment we are looking at right above the garage

Playing "Spot it" in Chinese with second cousin

More scooter with my youngest Aunt, she is my favorite!

Ready for some night time fun!

Bath Fun! Last time when we visit without Sam, taking a bath was too hard. So my mom bought a tub this time.

Enoch directing kids and adults to play "Uno" in Chinese.

The cute matching outfits my aunt (my mom's older sister) had made. The woman behind Michael is one of my dad's sisters

Peter loved this car and it was hard to take turns.

A new Chinese game we bought. Fun!

Monday, April 6, 2015

China episode 1

Pictures on this post are probably going to be out of order... pictures are a bit of a pain on the laptop and with this internet connection. The great firewall of China is more of a pain than ever and my Baylor VPN isn't always able to bypass it.

The trip to China was relatively uneventful. It's always disconcerting traveling so far, wondering whether or not you forgot to do or bring anything important. At the Houston airport China Air told us Michael's visa had a big problem and they might not let him into China... luckily turns out the lady was talking about his old, expired visa (which previously worked fine -- the old visa didn't have his full name on it and used initials). Was 15 hours nonstop from Houston to China. Enoch did great, watched TV, played games, slept, repeat. Peter was a pain, but luckily there was an empty seat next to me so we all ended up getting a seat. Could have been a lot worse! On the flight from Beijing to Qingdao Enoch and Michael suddenly informed me that they were about to wet their pants shortly before take off. Flight attendants wouldn't let me get up and use the restroom, so they peed in barf bags that I held for about 15 minutes. With a delay in Beijing and the drive to sharon's parents house it was about 26 hours of travel time, not too terrible.

It's been really great to be here so far. Sharon's parents love having the kids here and shower them with attention. They have been feeding the kids homemade dumplings and stuffed buns all the time, all kinds of porridge, shrimp, clams, and lots of crabs. Enoch loves the crabs and kept asking for more crab legs. It's nice to have the attention on the kids and not me, and it's also nice that Sharon is not pregnant this time. I think we're all a lot more relaxed than in previous trips and we're all enjoying our time together a lot more than in the past. Sharon's parent's business is pretty busy lately, with lots of loading and unloading from their frozen feed warehouse, which has been fun to see.

It has taken about 4 days for the kids to get back to normal -- they've probably been a bit more grumpy than usual and it's probably the jet lag. Everone's mostly back to normal, now though.

It's been fun to see the kids speak in Chinese to everyone. If people remember to use mandarin and not the local dialect, the kids do great. It doesn't feel like a struggle for them to communicate. It's all very satisfying for all the effort we've spent in teaching them Chinese is paying off.

So far we've mostly just been hanging out with family, eating meals with grandparents and great grandparents, and shopping on market days in the town and in the bigger city as well. We met Sharon's brother's new girl friend Lin Lin and they treated us to a fancy lunch.