祝你生日快乐！ Happy Birthday to me!!

So, yesterday was my birthday and it all started with brekky in bed!! Pauly even made me a cup of tea! Yummy! There were two things that we had decided to do: buy a traditional tea set (Paul's pressie) and go out to dinner at the famous "Quan ju de" Roast duck restaurant.

So we went out on the town in search of a tea set. While travelling over the last month, these tea set's were everywhere. They have the traditional tea pot(s), cups, and it all rests on a wooden tray that you can pour the water on and it's caught inside it, to empty later. This is all part of the ceremony. (Yes...I do love tea!) We have been looking at several different types of sets, especially in Shanghai, and I was holding out till we got to Jinan so that I didn't have to travel with it. BUT, we spent all day looking...and couldn't find one anywhere!!! So we just had to keep shopping!

We also found our way to the most famous of the many springs in this 'Spring City', Baotu Spring. These springs are famous throughout China as they are so pure that you can drink them. People from all over China visit Jinan to see these springs. They are quite pretty, although there was so many people there!

Pauly loves sightseeing!

This is the Baotu Spring. The water is really clear and I think it's cold (we didn't get close enough..)

Everyone brings bottles to fill up. This is where the spring is pumped through so it's easier to fill up the bottles!

The spring is also used for cooling down! It's still pretty hot here!

The pollution was pretty bad yesterday...although it only got worse throughout the day. After hours of walking round town and looking at springs, we caught a cab home and got ready for dinner! Peking duck was the only meal I remember so distinctly from last time I was here...it was fantastic! I'm not really one who'll eat the meat from anything that still looks like the animal either...even things with bones in it is a bit hit and miss with me too...I still ate so much last time! Even though they bring the whole duck to the table and slice it in front of you...it was just soooo good!!! You get thinly sliced shallots, the warm juicy duck meat, and sauce (I think it's hoisin?) and you roll it all up in little pancakes.....amazing!!!





Anyway...I was excited. 'Quan Ju De' Roast duck restaurant is so famous it's in my chinese textbooks...it's listed on the stock exhange...there's an outlet in MELBOURNE!!! We rocked up and as we were working order the whole duck or only half...they told us that they didn't have any. NO ROAST DUCK AT THE ROAST DUCK RESTAURANT!!

So, we ordered from the pictures (I couldn't read what the stuff was) and we think we ordered a lamb curry and bits of lamb deep fried. What came out was yummy little morsels of lamb on toothpicks and what looked like deep fried ducks feet. They said it was lamb, I think it was some part of lamb...probably a tendon or something. It was a chewy, squishy deep fried texture...that we decided to miss....it didn't taste like lamb. As we waited for our meal too, we realised that the only other people in the restaurant worked there! Most were watching the olympics on the tv, but others were doing the books, counting money, and cutting their fingernails. yep.

So we decided to have a look for some ice cream coz that's always good! (Mag-num?) But we found ourselves to be in the dodgiest part of town!!! It was crazy...it was like the end of the world! The smog was really bad so all the lights were shining through the haze and at times there was no one else around except us and a lot of rubbish all over the place. This is really unusual too, there are so many people that pick up after everyone (even someone who sweeps the massive roads!!) so it was really weird. We found our way back to a main road to realise that it was our main road, the one we live on, and that everything was closing up anyway. It was quite an adventure!! We got a cab home and I made tea! A lot of tea in my new tea pot!! :)

The spots aren't on the camera...that's the flash catching the smog!

We can't see the end of the street!

The start of our street.

After all that, I forget to mention that Paul learnt how to say 'it's my girlfriend's birthday today' in mandarin and he kept telling everyone! The lady in the coffee shop up the road played a hilarious bilingual rendition of 'Happy Birsday'...and when I was looking at some clothes, the ladies got on the microphone (they were yelling out the sale items etc) and said happy birthday to me..and then they all came to the change room and said I was a 'white beauty' lol Yep...everyone thinks I'm a supermodel over here!! I mean, people think that where ever I go...but here they keep telling me!! And they say Paul is handsome and charming, and that he has 'intelligent eyes on his head' hehehe that's a saying in chinese. The other day as I was going up one escalator and a little boy-about 9 or 10-was going down, his jaw dropped and he said 'hen piao liang' really loudly and stared as we passed each other! hehehe It means really beautiful!! I had to laugh at that one!!

Anyway...all in all, a really special birthday!! It's pretty cool to be in China! I remember saying this last time I got back...no matter how many bad things I see, do and experience, there are a million more beautiful people, places, or things. We're just getting started!

Peace!