Shandong

-Saturday, 9.01-
This was our last day in Shanghai, as well as our last day free day for the week. I had already finished my 1st project the night before, so I took this day to explore around. In the afternoon I took the subway with some of my classmates to what we thought was the French concession area, though we didn't really have a map to tell us where it was so we kinda just winged it. Even though we didn't find it, it was still fun to walk around and see more of the city besides the chaotic downtown area. We met up with the rest of the group for dinner at this restaurant called Vegetarian Lifestyle, and surprisingly it was really good. Afterwards we came back to the hotel and critiqued each other's projects and took a taxi bus to Shanghai train station. That in itself was an adventure, as our drivers were freakin' crazy, changing lanes across 4 lanes of traffic and blabbering some nonsense in Chinese at Edwin. We got on the sleeper train, got a couple of beers and hung out in our cabin and passed out in the moist sheets they gave us. Great...

-Sunday, 9.02-

We arrived in the city Jinan in the Shandong province in the morning. I was particularly clumsy that day. As I was walking down the stairs, I decided to walk down the middle section that was just a slope and slipped and slid down the whole way. Aside from the embarassment, it was kinda fun. The Shandong University of Art and Design (I'll say SUAD from now on) greeted us with a huge banner and a very warm welcome. We took a bus to the campus, checked in and got some awesome breakfast, after which we got back on the bus and took a quick tour of Jinan.
We saw some water spring gardens and the central shopping plaza before we had a feast of a lunch, and then we went to the Hero Mountain culture market, which was pretty exciting. There was so much unique stuff there. There was even a little turtle market with a huge assortment of live turtles, probably for people to buy to cook up later...sad :(
For dinner we ate at Shark King Hotel. It was an epic feast around a 40 foot diameter table in a really fancy room. Probably the classiest place I've ever eaten at. The Lazy Susan in the middle was probably 30 or 35 feet in diameter, and turned itself using magnetic levitation. The food was amazing and then everybody toasted everyone...multiple times. When the Chinese toast, they drink the entire glass. I toasted/got toasted probably 15 or so times. Great night. Can't remember what happened when I got back....probably went to bed?

-Monday, 9.03-

On Monday we went to the new SUAD campus about 40 minutes out of Jinan to meet the students and do a group activity. We all introduced ourselves and got to see some of the graduate work which was really amazing. At break we explored the campus and got some drinks and then came back to the classroom to work on our first assignment. The American students were to draw first on this piece of paper that ran along the wall, and then the Chinese students were to add to it, with a theme of our impressions of China. It was a really fun workshop and it was really interesting to see what the Chinese students would come up with. We had lunch, took the bus back to the old campus (where we're staying) and looked at the school president's private museum collection of antiques. Dinner at the cafeteria. Some of us went wandering around afterwards to get a grip of the area around us. Sleep.

-Tuesday, 9.04-

We woke up at the buttcrack of dawn to eat breakfast (which I missed...) and then got on the bus to Qufu, the hometown of Confucius. During the 2 hour bus ride, I think the driver used his horn 95% of the time. It was extremely annoying, though luckily I had my iPod to sorta drown it out. We got a tour of the Confucious Temple, which was built continually over 2500 years by each of the 70 or so generations that followed in Confucius' family. It was really cool and all the architecture was really ornate. We then went to eat lunch nearby and got a tour of the Confucius family cemetary afterwards.

Back on the bus to Taian, home of the largest mountain in China, Mt. Tai. This place I could've spent all day in because the view was spectacular. Since we were short on time, we took a gondola to the top and back down, but I doubt the group would've wanted to hike any of it anyway... For dinner we went to a Hawaiian buffet, and man do the Chinese like to toast a lot. Jackie, the coordinator from Shandong, kept filling up my beer glass, and towards the end of dinner, him and Yu Yong the camera man kept toasting. Even if I said no more they'd fill up my glass. Eventually I ralfed in the bathroom and then had a couple more glasses of beer to wash out the taste. Went back to the dorms and passed out. Fun night!

-Wednesday, 9.05-

Today some of the Chinese students came to the old campus to hang out with us, while some others from our group took a 3 hour bus ride to Weifang to learn kitemaking. That sounded fun but I could not take 6 hours of honking anymore, so I stuck around town with the Chinese students and we went to the Buddha mountain nearby with 10,000 Buddhas. That was a lot of fun. There was a giant golden Buddha up the stairs from the front gate and we hung around there for a while, then we walked up the mountain and hit some gongs and bells and whatnot, then ventured to the top of the mountain. Man, what a hike! It was really rewarding though, because from the top you could see all of Jinan. What a spectacular view. Afterwards we went to lunch at Pizza Hut, which actually wasn't THAT bad - it was a nice deviation from eating Chinese food for every meal of every day. Came back to the campus, did some laundry and got some rest.
Right now I'm at some backalley internet cafe. After this I'm going to work on my 2nd project before I meet up with the rest of the group for dinner. Tomorrow we start our collaborative projects with the Chinese students. Zai jian!