Because we teach on Saturday, Saturday evening and Sunday are great times to see the sites around us.
On Saturday night we went to see the German Catholic Church located near the Old Campus.
(Shandong University has six campuses in Jinan. They are building a 7th one. The Old Campus houses the Foreign Languages and Humanities Colleges. The Main Campus, the one we are on, houses the Science Colleges. Buses transfer the students from campus to campus. Most of our students are currently living on the Main Campus, but several get up earlier and catch the buses to to our campus for their summer classes.)
The church is beautiful. I have included a picture taken at night.
We also explored one of the town squares. These are lively places! It seems that thousands of people were visiting the square last night.
Men and women were exercising in a very large group with a leader and some music. Younger children were conducting roller blade competitions and races.We saw the square about 8:30 at night. We understand from our peers that they saw these events about 10:00 at night. Night activity is very big here because of the day time heat. I took some video of these events, but no photographs.
We actually ate dinner at a restaurant that looked a bit like a tiki hut. Apparently these restaurants are also popular in Beijing. We had an egg and chives dish, a fried eggplant dish, a dumpling, and a pork dish. The waiter was fun because he knew a bit of English-- Just enough to bail us out when we needed help. He was very amused by our efforts to order.
This morning we had a tour to Jinan's two famous sites: Batou Springs and Daming Lake. The lake is enormous! It is located in the center of the city. It was very hazy (smoggy?) so I could not see as far as perhaps on a clear day, but I could still tell it was large. The Springs were very interesting. Jinan is know for its many freshwater springs. We saw several of these. The springs were very crowded with visitors. An unintended site was the theater where people perform operas. Apparently the performers practice here--sometimes in costume, sometimes in regular attire. The theater was packed. We were able to watch part of a performance before moving on.
The trip between Batou Springs and Daming Lake was on a canal boat. We actually were lowered through a lock. Of course, I immediately thought of the C & O canal. It is pretty interesting to watch the waters being lowered. I took some video of this also.
We topped off the morning with lunch. One of the dishes was chicken. If you look carefully at the photograph you will see the feet and the head.
I am writing this after finishing a wonderful nap. I don't know exactly what we are up to tonight, but we have so much to see and do in so little time! I am feeling the clock counting down the days now.
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