Jimi and Mazzy Adventures

Up at 5am today, early breakfast and then a taxi ride to Jinan West Railway Station. We joined thousands of people waiting for their trains. We were going on the Bullet Train which goes at 400km per hour! Finally they announced our train and headed for the platform…

I couldn’t get any un-blurry pictures as we went very fast. But! There was plenty of interesting options on the menu on the train.

We decided we weren’t hungry!

And so we arrived in Shanghai and had another crazy taxi ride. Not a word of English and we didn’t have the hotel name written in Chinese. Of course he drive off at light speed while we were telling him the hotel name… but then he realized he couldn’t understand us. We tried pointing to maps, using translation apps, showing the hotel logo… nope. All this while he had the taxi parked on a freeway ‘kerb’ while we tried to explain where to go! Nic had a stroke of genius and rang the hotel and asked them to tell him the address and handed him the phone… it worked!!!! And we were off in a very noisy, old taxi that was threatening to fall apart to our incredibly posh Portman Ritz-Carlton hotel where we bumped into all the Port Adelaide players!!!

We found him!!!

And we reckon this is his cousin who lives just down the road a bit…

This afternoon we attended another event at the hotel and spoke with various Government officials and staff. The Premier spoke again but we weren’t late this time – phew!

By around 5.30 we headed off on another of our adventures – to find the big Gold Buddha that we could see from Nic’s hotel window. We found the large park/gardens that lead up the mountain… we just had to find the big Gold Buddha! The scenery was amazing. And so we’re the stairs!!!

There were lots of other Buddha’s wearing yellow capes… but we couldn’t find the big Gold Buddha.

Still not the right Buddha!… to

Eventually we climbed 50 flights of stairs. Yep 50. And found some beautiful temples at the top of the mountain and s sensational view over Jinan.

We arrived almost at the top of the mountain near sunset.

Now to walk down!!!

This morning started with an event where SA Premier Jay Weatherill spoke about the sister city relationship between Adelaide and Jinan. Would have been great if we could find the Confusious Hall on time. The Hotel is so large that no one quite knew where to go – so a group of us spent 20 minutes walking miles til we finally stumbled on it. No photos of that… it was bad enough being late so I didn’t pull out my phone/camera!

After that we had a meeting with Hafida Boys and Girls Club which looks after kids after school hours. It was a very interesting meeting and we are very hopeful that there are ways we can work together. Amelie is the Chairperson of the Board and we were made to feel very much at home.

We even met their lovely cook!

And shared lunch…

Amelie was very kind and took us to see some Buddha statues on the mountains. We didn’t have long as we had to get back to the hotel for another event.

This afternoon we visited the Primary School Attached To Jinan Normal School.

They had invited Raising Literacy Australia to discuss our programs and books. We had a tour of the school which has 2200 students and all of them were very happy and keen to say Hello to us visiting Aussies!

We had an excellent discussion with the Principal and other staff about opportunities to share information. We presented them with some of our resources.

And we received a beautiful gift from them in return – a special cup celebrating their 100 year anniversary of the school, that is decorated with the stamps from significant staff and students who have attended the school.

And here are even more happy and excited students…

A visit to Jinan Bi-lingual Experimental School this morning and the students performed an incredible display of costumes dancing, drumming, marching and martial arts.

And also a display of their technology projects including robots, electronics and 3D printing.

This school is a sister school to Plympton International College – the new bi-lingual school in Adelaide that teaches English and Chinese to its Primary School students.

However Jinan Bi-lingual Experimental School has 3300 students! Just a bit bigger than our schools back in Adelaide!

During this afternoon we had our first bit of ‘free time’ so our interpreter from the Jinan Library Mr Charles took us to Daming Lake and the Ni Shan Academy. I took a lot of pictures on my proper camera and not many on my phone. But for the first time so far we had time to relax and take in the sights. It was just what we needed and both of us loved seeing the traditional arts and buildings, and having a gentle walk around the lake and gardens in the sunshine. So here are just a few that Nic and I managed between us…

And here is a selfie with our amazing translator Charles who was also our guide.

Back to our hotel for a little rest, then off out for a long walk to find some food. We ended up in a quaint area eating like the locals – brilliant! And somehow we managed to order a half litre of beer each – but what a bargain at only $1.20 a beer! It went very well with our spicy chicken and ‘we think it was pork’ dish!

The Jinan Children’s Library has some great rooms and spaces for children to learn. It was fantastic to see some Kindy aged kids using the spaces.
We observed a class using one room for a clay workshop and learning how to make coil pots.

There was also a class learning about Traditional Chinese Theatre…

I have some video of the children doing this class but it’s too hard to put up on the blog right now.

I then did my presentation to the Library staff and they loved our books. We gifted some of our books to the library.

By this time it was lunch… so off we went for another feast!

View from our hotel – Shandong Hotel…

A few pics of the streets and buildings

A restaurant!…

Yep, I did another presentation today!… but first a look around the 6 floors of the beautiful Jinan Children’s Library.

We arrived at Shenzhen Louhu station to a warm welcome from the staff of Hyledar International Kindy.

The staff were amazing! We had a tour of the Kindy and observed an English – the kids are beautiful!

Next I gave a 1 hour class to about 50 teachers and staff. They were very interested and engaged and we had a great question & answer session afterwards. And of course they all wanted to be in a photo!!! You can just see me and Nic at the Centre dressed in our black Raising Literacy tops!

Followed by a meeting with head teachers, who then took us out to lunch… the food is incredible!!!

This simple Bok Choy (cabbage) dish was served on an ice sculpture, sitting in dry ice so that it was ‘smoking’ and was decorated with flashing lights and flowers… incredible!!! It tasted great too!

After that we headed off to the airport and said Goodbye to Guangzhao and Shenzhen. We were feeling pretty tired after a huge morning and guess who offered free wi-Fi in the airport?…