Qindgao during May holiday

After a chilly spring full of busyness, we escaped during May holiday to  Qingdao in Shandong province. Our pals Josh and Coco met us there for the adventure. We were excited to get out of the city! We decided to rent a car to  explore freely. We woke up to a morning of fog then hit the city! Qingdao has a colorful history- it was occupied by Germans which is evident in the architecture around town.

Day 1:
- Brunch at Kiwi (35 rmb eggs benedict)
-Cathedral  [under construction]
-Protestant Church
-The Guesthouse
-Qingdao beer museum & Seafood street
-Pier [invisible, so we ate BBQ seafood instead]
-Dinner back @ the Guesthouse.

Qingdao is between Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul.

Qingdao beer museum- and drinking beer out of a bag.

Real hops, antique tanks, and super realistic creepy mannequins.
Day 2: in Transit
We rented a car and headed to check out  Badaguan, bought hammocks, then drove up one hour to Laoshan. Ran into trouble with the checkpoints, permits, passes, but enjoyed the scenary. Finally we got up the mountain but couldn't find the Guesthouse, and took jump photos in an empty swimming. We scoped out the territory, and then dined under the stars. 

Handmade hammocks and the beach.

Day 3: Laoshan! Hiking to the waterfall (to be honest we never made it....) Then we hit the beach- as wide as a football field, and stretching as far all the way down the coast. There were a lot of people (it was a holiday) but it was not crowded at all! It was roughly lunch time so we walking for a resturant- not a single one in sight! Not even a convenience store to buy pop! It was about 90% residential. WE hit the one hotel on the beach- an extravagant square building with pillars, declaring itself the center of the beach. They were still under construction so we kept trotting, til Josh yelled, "FOOD!" And we saw a large inflate-a-rainbow and a cool outdoor patio with resturant. Like straight out of Socal- wicker chairs, beach umbrellas, and really tanned people.

Awesome lone beachside restaurant!

We took a seat and asked for a menu. The waiter came with a plate of meat and toothpicks. 

Uh, we didn't order that. Could we see a menu?

It's free! Mian fei! Everything in these two rooms is free! Welcome and help yourself! Its our grand opening!

We looked at each other incredulously. Free? A whole lunch buffet? Fancy potato salad-in-a-cup topped with smoked salmon. Creamy seafood chowder (with identifiable clams!) in a whole what bread bowl. We savored every bite. There was a HUGE chocolate sheet cake, that the frosting had begun melting off, and the congratulatory words were slowly sliding off the cake. Cream puffs, pink drinks in fun glasses were arranged in a 5 layered pyramid. Wow! We were thankful for that delicious free meal! A gift from God, really!

The car we rented to go to Laoshan.

concert @ Shanghai conservatory

One of our friends is studying composition at the conservatory here in Shanghai. She invited us to hear one of her pieces performed- and what at treat it was! It was an evening full of performances from all the international students, from 10(?) + countries. Some performers, some composers- from classical string quartets to electric guitars, traditional chinese instruments and even some dancing!

Pauline's pieces was soothing, calm and emotionally moving. She played the piano alongside a female vocalist. 

Another piece with a drummer and twins playing traditional instruments. I wish I could've got a photo catching their joy. The twins were full of smiles- they were relaxed and perfectly on beat! Wonderful performers! Wow- I remember my knees shaking when I performed- I enjoy playing at home but an audience is another story- so I really applaud how relaxed they were.

They ended with a piece beginning with the twins on traditional instruments (forgive me, I don't know the names and they kept switching) and then these drummer guys dressed up in uh.... costumes. One guy was asian, one looked white and one looked african. (I'm trying to be descriptive not racist here!) It was awesome! Amazing music- nothing like I had ever heard before.

cloudy skies

Rainy days. I'm working on a minimalist folding trench coat right now. I combined patterns from a heavy cotton trench and my favorite wrap dress! Its out of a ultra thin lightweight nylon, And I'm planning to put chinese knotted buttons on it- here toggles might normally be. I forgot the pockets *doh* but maybe I won't be needing them anyways! I spent quite a while yesterday figuring out the adjustable elastic in the hood- minimal hardware, and nothing flapping around. I was looking for some leather scraps, but ended up with plastic hooks. The next hardest part will be sealing the seams- with modpodge or something??

Our orange fish jumped out of the tank Sunday!

SH Museum of Glass

T's cousin Tiffany came by for a visit and one of the many places we went to was the Museum of Glass, about 45 minutes north of the city. It was awesome (I had taken my parents last Oct) but we went on a Sunday where they have more demos and a special Sunday-onle Flameworking workshop! After a lengthy ride on line 3, we cabbed to the museum- in an industrial area, or factories, wide dusty streets, and huge trucks carrying rocks. They made us check our bags and we went to see the glass blowing demo! They made a swan and a vase (blow molded- 2 part mold) There was at least 100 people in there. The nice thing was a videographer and live feed going to a huge monitor above center stage, for you to see details and closeups of him shaping the feathers on the wings, etc.

Modern art- shelves of vases with chinese characters etched on them.

It was really cool! Tiffany signed up for the Flameworking class, 150rmb for about 40 minutes of one-on-one teaching, in one of the exhibits- so all could come a watch. She had never done it before! It was really cool to watch- though all the instructions were in Chinese. He said she could make whatever she wanted, and gave a paper to draw something out. She settled on a pendant with matching earrings. The teacher made one earrings as a demo- then she made the other. He was hovering over her every move- "The petal is too big! stop! let me do it. Watch- see, we need to have even petals on the flower..."

Aquaponics Day 2

Last night I was skyping with my mom, and noticed the little fish underneath the pump. My mom, "its ok, he's sleeping. Fish need rest too," So I did a bit of research: 

Because most fish do not have eyelids, they don't close their eyes as such, but they do go through a period when their bodies slow down and they are not going anywhere. It might be in reality more of a rest than a sleep but to the fish it has the same effect as a night's sleep has on humans.


Fascinating how fish are so uniquely designed to "rest". Some become dormant, while others squeeze into small places and cover themselves with goo(mucus) or mud. 

We woke up excited to see how our project was doing. Unfortunately, Little fish didn't wake up : (

We dismantled our unit and separated plants from fish. We jumped the gun, and were supposed to cycle the unit to get the good bacteria growing in the gravel (medium) of the plant bed. We put the fish in a larger tub and the plants stayed in the gravel on the balcony.

Aquaponics Day 1

In a city of 22 million, "wet markets" are just around the corner, selling fresh veggies, mushrooms, some even fish, poultry, and grains. Fresh food is the question- how safe to eat is it? Rumors abound. The White mushrooms have been painted- that is why Chinese prefer the dirty looking ones. Or the fake eggs. Within Shanghai many expat turn their noses, and even locals whisper about the farmers who refuse to eat their own crop.

Many farmers grow their own food separately from the chemically-raised crops they sell. "I feel there is nothing safe I can eat now because people are in too much of a hurry to make money," said Huang Zhanliang, a farmer in Hebei.

One friends told me to never eat local seafood if I ever wanted to have children. After getting way too accustomed to having certain digestive issues, and having an in-depth conversation with a Aquaponics lecturer, we decided to give Urban farming a try.

Flower market: Changning Lu @ Wanhangdu Lu

We are also inspired by this and
this

So we headed to the flower market, headed towards the pet area, and began realizing how much we didn't know about Aquaponics. We asked tons of questions about pumps and food- the seller told us that the Japanese do Aquaponics, but not in China. After some diagrams and smart phone research, we got:

Glass fish bowl: 75 rmb

Fish food: 5 rmb

Ceramic pot (for plants): 20 rmb

Water pump and extra tube: 38 rmb

Gravel:

2 Tomato plants, 8" tall: 10 rmb

2 Cumcumber plants, 3" tall: 10 rmb

2 Tilapia fish (6" and 4"): 30 rmb

Total: 280 rmb

 The plant guy said we should start seeing veggies after 1 month, then one on a monthly basis until it got more mature. (This is assuming we kept them in soil)

Care for the fish! After a bumpy motorcycle ride in a plastic bag, our fish were pretty shook up. We also learned not to change more than 20% of the water, because it will cause stress. Whoops! The water was really dirty (you could barely see through the bowl) so we changed it. They were sad.

I removed the plants from the soil, soaked them in water to get all the roots untangled from the soil, then re-planted them in gravel, about 3" deep, to make sure they had plenty of support.

We put the pump in the fish bowl, and the tube from the pump came up through the center of the planter to the top of the gravel bed. When we plugged it in, we noticed the water draining back into the fish bowl was really loud. Splattering. So I cut up a disposable tupperware to create a "slide" that fit around the tube and sandwiched inbetween the planter and fish bowl. It worked!

computer-less

What do you do without a computer? Especially if your job relies on it?

Paper. With my dead computer, it meant dead to-do lists. Trapped on the interwebs, only to be accessed through a very small smart phone screen.So I've been spend more time Hand drawing and rendering ideas, making notes, and drafting emails- typing long emails on a smart phone takes a while- its best not to make too many mistakes!

I realized how dependent I was on my computer. How much jibber jabber there was.Now I'm forced to limit myself to urgent emails- no banter! Fortunately, Timon' has a spare semi-working laptop with basic capabilities at home- whew! I can still research product ideas and trends, and edit excel docs.

Something cool that I discovered this week was open source software. Gimp, Inkscape, and Open Office are all free simpler versions of Photoshop, Illustrator and Microsoft office. Seriously saving me right now!