Cowless non-dairy faux-Mongolian dairy farm

Shantian Dairy Farm

The leader goat

The Shantian farm is a farm to show others, probably mostly tourists, the Mongolian way of life. This "farm" was located in a big field with yurt tents modernised with air-conditioning, many animals including horses, goats, chickens, dogs and ostriches, but unfortunately no real moo cows.

Plastic cows at the dairy farm

It was a nice afternoon but not really what I expected, it was obvious that this was just set up for us tourists and really wasn't the normal way of life for these people. Right next to this field were big villa style houses and also a fancy horsemanship horse riding club. However it was well organised with live singing, dance and music, a big BBQ. Also the crossing of the river on pieces of rope was fun.

Camp fire and BBQ in the evening

International Museum of Ceramic Art

Many many pots

Happy Easter!

Easter weekend in Suzhou and Shanghai

Chinese lutes at an antique market in "old town" Shanghai

My piece of Easterness easter bread in a German bakery in Shanghai

Our tour guide George in Suzhou. He was so enthusiastic and kept on talking and talking 

Suzhou The Venice of the East

Chinese cake in Suzhou 

Nanjing da xue

Trying to decipher a completely Chinese menu

Menu completely in Chinese

Nanjing da xue

Liulian time

Our Chinese class eating Liulian (smelly durian)!

It tasted like a combination of onion and sweet cheese. It wasn't that bad, although the smell was!

Off to the police station now! Not being arrested or anything, however it's possible after our trespassing at Mao's mausoleum incident! 

Nanjing University other modern campus

The other Nanjing university campus is located in the middle of mountains and it took us a bit over an hour to get there by bus from the city centre. We were welcomed by local students and they gave us a small tour of the campus. I paired up with Brandy, a sophomore student studying business and finance or something like that. She was so ecstatic when I told her: wo lai zi he lan (I come from Holland). For some reason she adores Holland and everything about it. She said she even collects newspaper articles about Holland and of course like all people say, that she loves the Keukenhof flowers. She applied to go for a study exchange to Groningen University but that she hadn't got it because out of 400 people, only 20 got accepted.  

We had lunch together in the canteen and she bought so much, all for only 10 yuan, and then we had to head off to the talent show singing performance.

The modern shiny library

The library 

The accommodation buildings

Brandy lives with 3 other girls in the same room on two bunk beds which is quite tight. But better compared to the Gulou campus where there are 7 people sharing the same sized room. That is really a squeeze.

                                                       Me and Brandy at the talent show

Very futuristic student activity building

Traditional crafts

Today we had an art and craft afternoon where we first made egg holders by using strings and putting knots in them. This necklace is used to carry a boiled egg, "a lucky egg" so that you can eat it whenever you feel like it. We thought this was quite funny. Then we made perfume "fragrant" bags by using small cloths and sewing them together to form a cute little bag where a bag of some type of potpori was put in the middle. This is supposed to have some medicinal properties, such as keeping mosquitoes away. It does smell a lot like curry though. Some local ladies came to the class to help us making these things, although they didn't speak English, they were very kind and my helper lady even made another perfume bag for me. 

Then we had a painting/calligraphy class in the appropriately named painting and calligraphy classroom which had a very authentic look with all the painting items and of course our lao shi (teacher) was the typical old man you would expect to be doing calligraphy. He showed us how he drew a blossoming tree and explained about all the inks and brushes and then it was our turn. 

Painting/calligraphy class

The lao shi

Dumpling making evening

Dumpling making evening

Some of the Chinese student volunteers

My beautiful works of art - blossom tree painting and perfume "fragrant" bags

Yangzhou

For our free day, some of us decided to visit the city of Yangzhou, near the junction of the Grand canal and the Yangzi river, about 100km north of Nanjing.

The K222 train we took from Nanjing to Yangzhou costing only 17 RMB

One of the canals/rivers

The museum/temple of the 8 eccentric painters

Statues of the 8 eccentric painters and others

One of the paintings

Lucky temple reflection

 Passing a few local markets, bridges and canals we visited the Slender west lake park. Being a Sunday, it was full of people, but still really worth going. The timing was perfect because everything is now blossoming. It almost looks like snow falling down from the trees. The park was beautiful and was just like being at home with all the bridges, small canals, ducks and even tulips! There were so many tulips. 
But we only had 2 hours until we were planning on heading back to the city, so later on because of the tight time, we took the mini train/bus to the other side of the park where the Damming temple and the 9 storey Qiling pagoda (built in 1996) were located and then took a bus to the city centre to have dinner. 

Slender west lake park - beautiful blossoms

Slender west lake park

Slender west lake park - 24 bridge, making almost a complete circle for boats to easily pass through

Slender west lake park

We had a bit of a problem getting back to Nanjing because the last train left at 18.20 and the last bus was supposed to be around 19.30. So we went to the bus station and ran around to look for the right bus, but everything seemed closed and dark and no one was around. I asked a security man and he pointed to a bus and said something which included Nanjing so we ran to it and were so happy to be on. There were only 2 other people on the big bus and the man in charge was asking 60 quai per person. Obviously this was not a normal bus service and since the bus was probably going back to Nanjing anyway, the driver and the man wanted a good deal. But we didn't mind because this was our last way out for the night until the next train at midnight. However the man and another passenger girl were having a very big argument. We of course couldn't understand what it was about but the man was so loud and aggressive sounding is wasn't too nice. Then after a few minutes we were told to get off the bus. There we were, left on the street with shouting people around us. Later on we found out through Daniel, the other passenger with us, who was in Yangzhou for his work as a beauty advisor for Lancome, told us this whole problem was because the girl wanted to go to another place and not Nanjing and she wasn't agreeing with the price. So in the end she drove off in a taxi and we stood around on the road for about an hour until the situation changed. It seemed as if we were hitch hiking, a sign was put out in front of a tree with "Nanjing" written on it. In the end, we were told to get into a car and for 60 RMB each would be taken to Nanjing. A bit dodgy? I know this sounds wrong and it did feel a bit of a wrong thing to do at the time, but because Daniel was coming with us in the car, it seemed more reliable. This story does sound like it would end with the guys kidnapping us but that would be another story and not this one because after 2 hours of being squashed with 3 other people in the back seat with a smelly smoking Chinese driver we eventually made it to Nanjing.