Birthdays

Mark and LiLi celebrated their 28th and 2nd birthdays on March 16th.  The weekend of their birthday we did a hiking trip to Yandang Shan - a mountain range formed through volcanic activity.  We went here with Vicki's family in December and really loved it, so when one of Mark's co-workers (who helped us arrange our Dec. trip) decided to organize a trip there, we were definitely in.

Hiking with our baby girl

There were 17 of us that went on the weekend trip.  It is a 2 hour drive (or 35 min. train ride) from our home.  Ten of us stayed in a "Farmer's Hotel" while the rest of the group opted for the 4-star hotel (the only hotel in town with "soft" beds).  It is Y100/night for the farmer's hotel - so about $15.  The 4-star hotel is Y400/night - so $60.  The farmer's hotel is just a private home that has been organized into motel rooms.  Think of the shabbiest motel you've ever stayed in and you are probably close to what this place is like.  But the price matches the quality, so we don't care!  The beds are Chinese beds - which are akin to sleeping on a sheet of plywood.  When we arrived this time too, the weather had just changed from cold days to warmer days (in the 50s), so the concrete house was "sweating".  There was literally water dripping from the ceiling and the walls and floor looked like they had been doused with a bucket.  Each of the rooms has an individual heater/air conditioner though, so once in there, we were able to control the moisture a bit.  The first night though the sheets felt pretty damp!  We liken it to camping though, so it doesn't faze us.


That night we went out to dinner with the other "young" Westerners in the group.  So the five of us grabbed some street food snacks and then ate at a noodle shop.  LiLi ate quickly and was ready to go play with local kids on the street, so Mark stayed inside to chat with his co-workers while LiLi and I played.

People here love to give LiLi gifts - particularly if they think it will 1) allow them to hold her (bribes!); or 2) keep her around longer.  Sometimes these gifts are questionable (e.g. a book of matches), but most are food (e.g. candy, jello, "meat" sticks, duck tongue, etc.).  On this particular night, LiLi was looking at the seafood selection at a nearby restaurant with other kids and the staff decided to give LiLi two live little shrimp in a cup.  After a little bit they decided to throw in a little minnow too, but they didn't add more water to the cup so the fish started splashing water out violently since it wasn't fully submerged.  This is now LiLi's favorite story to retell.  She is becoming quite the story teller despite her limited vocabulary.  So most of the story is told through charades, renditions of "what's that!", and a few interspersed words like "wet" or "yu" (Mandarin for fish).  It is hilarious.  She is so much fun.


LiLi was a big hit, as well as my pregnant belly ("Didi" as LiLi calls it - Mandarin for little brother).  While I was out on the street with LiLi I had to answer many questions about when I was due, if it was a boy, where the baby would be born (they always think I will return to the U.S. for the birth), etc.  I'm pretty good at conversing in Mandarin on this topic now.  This time, I was scolded by the local women though.  They unzipped my jacket and patted by sides, yelling at me "Meiyou! Meiyou!".  This literally translates as "no have".  Apparently they didn't think I had enough fat on my sides and I should eat more.  They even brought out a rather pregnant Chinese woman to show me what I should look like.  Ironically, at the beginning of the month the doctor in Shanghai (ignorantly) told me I gained too much weight and I "need to start exercising and eating healthy" (since his assumption apparently was I am lazy and eat too much unhealthy food.  He never actually asked me what I do for exercise or what I eat.).  Apparently I can't please anyone...


The next morning we went hiking with the group.  Mark's co-worker, Amy, who organized the trip actually went off with three of the other guys to do a more aggressive hike.  Yandang is set up as a series of "parks" - you can hike between all of them, but most people drive between the main attractions.  In reality, this geological park requires very little hiking, and even the trails that are off the beaten path are all armored stone!  The Chinese tourists rarely leave the main paths though, so the more secluded ones are quiet and free of obnoxious tour guides with flags and bullhorns.


We would have joined the more aggressive hiking group if I wasn't so pregnant and worried about holding them up.  Having us stay with the main group also allowed Amy to go enjoy herself.  She feels a need to "babysit" when she organizes these things and is always having to hike or ride at a slower pace than she would prefer.  She asked us to "babysit" the group - which we agreed to do just so she would go do the hike she would enjoy.  


No one in the group actually needs babysitting though...  they are all quite competent adults.  Amy had also arranged for an English tour guide for the group, but the guide canceled last minute due to a family emergency so we actually ended up with a Mandarin-speaking guide instead.  The poor woman must have felt like she was herding cats all day.  Westerners aren't very good at being herded.  Just tell us when to be back on the bus and let us be.  No need to move us a a big group.  


I think my favorite moment was at the Square Cave attraction.  We had gone there with my family in December and at that time Mark had seen a trail he though you could hike down.  So this time he took LiLi and the two of them ran ahead to go do that and just meet us at the bottom of the mountain for lunch.  When the rest of us got to the path that led to the trail Mark took down, the guide stopped everyone and said there was no more road (which isn't true...) and we couldn't go any further.  She then asked, "where is the man with the baby?  She nearly had a heart attack when we grinned and said, "down that road!"  Mark and LiLi made it down the mountain just fine and we met up with them at the base for lunch.


At another location, we were aware of another waterfall that we had seen when hiking with my family, so we wanted to go see how much water flow there was now.  One of Mark's Chinese co-workers ("Cathy") told the guide we wanted to do this and would just meet up at the bus later.  The guide was visibly stressed about losing some of her "cats" but agreed we could just be back to the bus at five.  Cathy joined us for the afternoon then and we had a great time together.  The tour guide called Cathy at 4PM to say everyone else was already back on the bus.  We were no where near the exit though (or done with our hike), so it was agreed that the bus would just come back and get us at 5PM instead.


When we got back to the farmer's hotel, we found only cold showers...  We called Amy, who called the owner, and found out that he was out of oil.  We heated water in a teapot and bathed in the sink before going to dinner (street food).  There was hot water though by the time we returned from dinner.


The next day it was raining and we thought that the group would just head back home early instead.  We called the more aggressive hikers, who had set out earlier in the morning, and heard that they were huddled in a shelter at a trail head waiting for the rain to clear in order to start their hike.  Apparently there was some miscommunication... because we thought they would be back in two hours.  So we decided to just hang out in the lobby of the 4-star hotel until then.  

Chocolate cupcakes with ganache
frosting decorated as fish

Five hours later we were finally on our way...  It was frustrating to not know what was going on for that long and to try to keep a toddler entertained in a hotel lobby.  The weather had actually cleared up a bunch by then though, so we drove to one last destination on our way out.  A third of the group took the cable car up to the top of the mountain and the rest of us hiked up the steps.  Since this part of Yandang Shan is the most out of the way the place was empty.  There were several interesting Buddhist temples built here and also some fun hiking.  At the end of one path there seemed to be a trail going down the mountain.  So Mark (with LiLi) and his co-worker Jesse (one of the more aggressive hikers) decided to run down the mountain and have us pick them up on the road on the way out.  The plan actually worked out well and they got to get in some extra hiking.  

Decorating starfish.  LiLi loves to do crafts.

This trip to Yandang Shan was a fun & inexpensive way to spend Mark & LiLi's birthday weekend.  Because of this trip, we actually ended up doing LiLi's 2nd birthday party the following weekend.  It was a fish-themed party.  So we made fish bowl invitations ("Swim on over for LiLi's 2nd birthday!"), decorated the house with "fish" balloons we made (taping paper fins, tail, and eyes on are quite effective) and hung from the ceiling, and served fish cupcakes and dirt pie (and a carrot cake birthday cake for Mark).  We also decorated "star fish" with rice I dyed and set up "fishing" in the bathtub with magnetic fish and poles.  It was a fun time.


We had seventeen adults and ten children come to the party.  LiLi love hosting a crowd and is still excited about the fish balloons hanging from the ceiling...

To finish off our birthday weekend, we took advantage of the nice weather to get in a long bike ride.  A group of our friends were going hiking, but we decided we need to ride because 1) we need to train for the W101 (there is a possibility we will be home for it this summer); 2) at this point in the pregnancy it is more fun to ride than to hike; and 3) we need to take advantage of riding without having to find a babysitter!

The Zhongmen hill climb.  What awesome,
vacant road climbing up the mountain!

We set out to try a new route.  Normally when we do this I create GPS tracks for us to follow.  However, since we mostly new the route and looked at Google Maps, we didn't take the time to create a track to follow.  Not a good idea...  First, we missed the left we wanted and climbed an extra 300' to a dead-end.  Not a big deal though.  We got to see people hand cutting granite and the view was nice.  We then found our correct left hand turn, but then we came to a split in the road with two village names we didn't recognize.  On the map there seemed to be one main road with some offshoots... but both of these looked like main roads.  We chose the one we thought kept climbing the most (since we were only at 400' elevation and knew we needed to go to 1200').  We picked wrong though.  That road climbed a bunch more but then descended before we knew it should...  We ended up at a road we have done before (glad for old tracks on the GPS!), but it meant we still had another 1200' to climb to get home!


Another thing to note... don't let the pregnant girl carry the money since she'll have to pee so many times during the ride.  One of the times we stopped I must have lost our cash.  It is quite the ordeal to get off riding bibs to pee on the side of the road, so this isn't surprising in retrospect.  We had a bunch of food with us, but had planned on buying some snacks at some point.  With the extra climbing, the ride was a slower pace than expected which meant we definitely needed food...  but we had no money now!  Mark ended up begging some food from a small village store (we've been there before - so he'll return there to repay them the 95 cents for the break cakes.  It was probably a gift, but it will make us feel better.

Flowering broccoli adds some
color to the landscape

Also, because the pace was slower with the additional climbing, we were now racing dark.  We have a permanently mounted light on LiLi's chair, but we didn't bother bringing a front light.  We ended up getting home only 15 min. after sunset - so it was still dusk.  It was a hard, long ride but a great training day.  6:20 pedal time, 113K, and 3600' of climbing.  Not too shabby for being somewhere between 35 weeks and 37.5 weeks pregnant!  And we had LiLi with us.  She loves to ride.  She NEVER complained the whole ride and spent a lot of it serenading us with her singing (the lyrics generally just include "Mama", "Baba" (Daddy in Mandarin), and "Yi-a" ("Ayi" is auntie in Mandarin, but LiLi flips them and calls her teacher Yi-a) or pointing out her favorite sites (ducks - i.e. yazi (she calls them "ga ga ga" since that's the noise the Chinese say ducks make), cows (niu), and flowers (hua).  Where did we get such an awesome kid?