Everyday Adventure

With the crisp, cool air beginning to break up the humid and wet fall, Erich and I were inspired to explore some newparts of Beilun last weekend. We saw a blurp in an expat magazine about a newly opened trail/park in Beilun, so we set off with a packed lunch and good spirits.

Of course, our taxi driver claimed to "know" this place as we showed him the Chinese name...so we were not surprised when he dropped us off in front of Harborland (the local amusement park) with a smile anda shrug of the shoulders. Despite our attempts to tell him this was a hiking trail, not roller coasters that we were looking for, he was sure this was the correct address.

We set off for an adventure, and this was the beginning. After wandering around the side of the amusement park, we found a huge lot of newly demolished old housing...a common sight around here. "Out with the old and in with the new" seems to be a sad but true way of life. We exploredthrough therubble, trying to find this "new trail" and actually caught a glimpse of some stairs that looked like they were going up the side of a steep hill...but there was a river running between us and it.

Eventually after walking up and down some other streets, we caught a glimpse of what looked like a new entrance gate to somewhere. The photo above shows our approach as well as the lovely sewage hole that is uncovered for anyone wanting to die a slow death by falling 10 feet into the depths of the Chinese underground. (Funny enough, we encountered 2 other sewage holes uncovered recently...a good reason to always look ahead and never go hiking in the dark here :) )

Anyway, the trail went up and down some large hills (read: LOTS of stairs) and had some great views of the factories, city, and countryside inBeilun. Totally worth the wandering aimlessly that morning. Highlight for me was finding some MONSTER grasshoppers and praying mantis. No joke, these things were huge and so cute.

This trail must have also been an old (and still used) burial site for several local families. As we walked along, we kept seeing a lot of orange peels, fake/real flowers and shiny, metalic paper...a sure sign of Chinese tombs. So it was no surprise when along the trail we found a few old tombs and then 10 feet later, more, and before we knew it, they seemed to be around every corner. I'd love to come back to the trail for "Tomb Sweeping Day" in the spring. This is a national holiday where the Chinese visit the tombs of relatives, clean the space and place items like fake money, flowers, fruits, etc on the sites of their ancestors. They do this EARLY in the morning and since most tombs are in the hills and countryside, it involves some hiking to get there.

As we followed the trail to it's end, we came out of the park and onto a street we were very familiar with...who knew it was that easy to get there? Haha, oh well.

In the name of Thanksgiving, I'll end this post by saying we're thankful for the endless adventures China provides us and the appreciation we have gained for simple pleasures in life.

Resolution

um, yeah. so since july a lot has happened and i have found i am not meant to be a blogger as you can tell from my neglect the past several months.

however, i have made a resolution...no need to wait for the new year. once a week. blog. anything. just blog. when we go home, we always forget all of the interesting things that happen to us and stories to tell. it's hard to recall all of our experiences in china, especially as they become more and more "normal" for us here, even though for our family and friends they are far from it. so i am trying to look upon china with fresh eyes and begin taking more photo/video of the life we live to help others see why we love it here so much.

so each week, i have decided to post SOMEthing. maybe a food we ate or a daily ritual, or a little story from work/school. a glimpse into our lives since we rarely are able to share it with you all other than a skype chat here and there.

so...here it goes. please feel free to hound me if i slack off in the coming weeks.

LOTUS root. a delicious and strange looking food that i have come to LOVE in china. erich has other feelings towards the vegetable, but we won't go there today. i first discovered it cooked in a soy type broth with carrots, onion and celery at school lunch one day. i was a little scared to bite into the large hole-y unknown, but as i did, there was a crunchy, fiberous texture that made me go back for more. i actually thought there was a hair in my food the first time i ate it, because as you bite into it and break the surface, the millions of little fibers inside are broken and separate, looking like little hairs on your food! the lotus root is what grows under the water of the lotus flower (of which there are TONS in our neighborhood let along all over china). Here is a photo of one blooming earlier in October around the corner from our apartment . there really isn't a ton of flavor to the vegetable itself. it just takes on the flavors of whatever you cook it with.

i kept wondering where people bought it in our town, as i never seemed to see the little slivers of swiss cheese looking veggie in the market or stores. until last weekend. elaine, a local friend and one of the TA's at our school, took me shopping and taught me how to cook some traditional chinese dishes. i asked her about the lotus root while wandering through the market and she showed me this. it was a series of many long, zucchini-shaped pieces joined together. the holes that are its signature had been camoflauged from me all this time.

anyway, we took it home and she showed me how to cook it with mushrooms, onion and tofu as well as some salt and oil to make a simple but tasty chinese dish. yum...thanks elaine!