GREAT WEEK-END IN WEIFANG

Above is the city of Waifang.

We have been looking forward to the Kite Festival for a long time.  Toby, our "Waiban" (facilitator) promised to take us some time ago.  Well the date finally arrived.  We left the Hanlin Hotel at around 8:45 AM and headed West.  The peak of the kite festival was last week-end.  Toby explained that millions of people come on the opening day, and it wouldn't have been good to go then.  The Vegetable Fair was just as impressive so he timed our trip to see the tail end of the kites, and get in on the vegetables at their peak.  As we made our way to Weifang, we stopped at a smallish museum.  Here's a picture of me sitting outside.  We were pleased to see that spring was still evident here.

 Toby has been careful to pick a good restaurants for us and order dishes that us westerners would enjoy. (That is a little tricky in China.)  As we were getting seated, and waiting for the food to come, he got this twinkle in his eye, as he told us that he had ordered a surprise dish for us.  I asked, "Is it from a plant, or animal?"  He told us - Animal, an underground animal.  We have never see mole or badger on a Chinese menu -- so he had our attention as we tried to figure out what it could be. (????)  Then he explained that cicadas are born in the tree, but drop to the ground, and grow for several months under the ground, before the come to the surface and live in the trees briefly, before they die.  I (Sue) had a cold cicada that Dave brought home from a banquet he attended.  I had been teaching, and wasn't able to attend -- so he brought me a sample -- how nice!

I was happy to try a hot, fresh one, and surprisingly, they were OK.  Much better than a cold one.  The flavor was good.  They must have sauted them in garlic and a little Worcestershire sauce.  I ate six or seven of them.

Dave enjoyed a few as well.  Toby was really pleased that I liked them.  He told us that they're a really good source of protein, and that they're really good for our health.

Here we are, after our meal, waiting to load up and get on the road.  JoAnna, is from Spain, and teaches Spanish at our University.

We snapped the above picture just outside of the vegetable fair and it turned out really well.

 Shouguang is the city in the Weifang area where the Vegetable Fair was held.  We were told that it takes several months to get this all set up and ready.  Our guess is that they had to grow all the vegetables here.  So they started work on it quite some time ago.  Most of the plants were completely mature, and the fruit was ready to harvest.

 Many of their art displays reminded us of the Rose Parade.  This dragon above is covered with white beans and corn kernels.

There were many types of melons, squash and gourds that were hanging from above.  They mostly grew in the ground, and ran the vines up the grills.

Again, we experienced the "celebrity phenomenon."  Lots and lots of people approached us, asking to have their picture taken with us.  It really baffles us. . . . Who would have guessed. . . .

 There were a lot of different kinds of squash and gords, some of which were quite colorful.

These "snake melons" were so weird!!!!  We've never seen them in the markets.  Hanging from the grills above us, it was like snakes coming out of the ceiling!  Kind of creepy!  When I asked my students about them, they said that they're not sweet -- but more like a squash.

These are watermelons, big full sized watermelons hanging from above!

This picture doesn't do it justice.  It looked a lot like coral growth under the sea.  It's actually ginger plants!  Very cool!

There were beautiful orchids on display as well.  We were told that the Chinese call them "Butterfly Plants".

There were mostly vegetables, but this display of tulips was refreshing and quite beautiful.

The water-wheel is a fairly common decorating feature at most parks, many restaurants etc.  As you can see, I'm carrying an umbrella.  It started to rain while we were here.  It was coming down really hard!  We had to wait for a half hour or so before moving on to the next exhibition hall.  Our umbrellas were in our back-pack in the van, and we ended up buying this red one from a vender.  It was only 10 RMB, ($1.50). 

We spent the night at a hotel in Weifang.  It was a four star place, and the room was fine.  The breakfast left a lot to be desired though.  We haven't figured out how to eat a boiled egg with chopsticks yet.

The next morning we went to the location of the kite festival.  Since we'd missed the big celebrations last week-end, it wasn't too crowded. 

This is a large pagoda at the kite museum area.  You could climb to the top and get a good view of the entire area.  They also had a huge dragon kite inside.

The head of the large dragon kite.  Here is a link to a BYU produced animated video we have been using in our classes that has a dragon kite and a phoenix kite.  Check it out, you will enjoy it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PjAfwwGJJ4

We are still in Spring here and many of the trees are still in full bloom!

This is the kite store we visited at the kites museum.  The women behind the tables are making the frames and hand painting each individual kite.  It was quite impressive and fun to see all of the designs.  Dave bought a kite while we were there but he got a stunt kite.

More of our group and others shopping for kites.

One interesting thing we saw a lot of were these strange trees/bushes that had the bosoms below the leaves on the branches.  This is opposite of most flowering plants like this.  We'd never seen anything like this before.

Sue at one of the typical round doors the Chinese like in their old style architecture.

Another picture of Dave and I at the dragon statue made of seeds at the vegetable fair.

This is a tree with red chilies on it.....quite strange!

Dave resting at the vegetable fair while we were waiting for it to stop raining outside.  I think that this is a good picture of him.

More Chinese wanting to get pictures with us.

Some beautiful blossoms on a tree at the restaurant were we ate.

As you can see, we had a fun weekend and got a chance to experience more of China!