Da Run Fa

When was the last time that you saw this many bikes in the US? Just look at all those bikes. In the background you can see 7 of the 20 dorms that Qingdao Agricultural University uses to house its 25,000 students.

The alleys between the dorms are filled with bikes. Despite the plethora of bikes, only about 1/5 of the students have a bike and those that do often haul a friend (or family) on the bike rack. Sara and I thought we'd adopt this nifty exercise in efficiency. We dropped about $40 to get a brand new bike from the RT Mart - or as it's called in Chinese "Da Run Fa" which means Big (da), Moisture/Sleek/Mellow-Voiced/Lubricated (run), Hair (fa). The bike from Big Sleek Hair is wonderful! It comes with all the fixings that bikes in the US eschew - such as fenders, a basket, a kickstand and a rear rack.

Since we don't feel conspicuous enough, just being stared at by 8 out of 10 people on campus, we decided to ride around - the Chinese way - with Sara on the rear rack. It did the trick. Now 9 out of 10 people stare and most all small children point, yell and chase us.

On GeiBei's maiden voyage, we rode past my favorite garbage man who this time was not neck-deep in the campus trash hole, but instead had found some used oil containers with a few drops left. He had syphoned enough leftover drops to half-fill a peanut butter jar with a melange of oil. I'd heard that this was how street-food stalls got their oil - but never believed or witnessed it. So, that's why it tastes so good?

QINGDAO or BUST!
Yep, thats about 400 pounds of luggage (mostly Sara's shoes). We weaseled over 300 pounds of luggage out of our meager coach-class international allotment. That's two checked bags weighing in at 50 pounds each and we each have a 50 pound carry-on roller bag, plus our daypacks stuffed to the gills.

We don't need all this stuff. But, how else would they know we are Americans upon picking us up at the airport?

At check-in two bags were 52 pounds each, one was 56 pounds and the other 44 pounds. After a little shuffling we had tidily packed just over 50 pounds in each bag. A few winks at the baggage chicky and we were all set.

We really have superb packing prowess. We knew a few bags were over and few under the limit, but had no clue exactly how much since the kitchen scale we used to aid in packing maxed out at 35 pounds.


This month has been a month of "lasts." Our last walk with the dogs, our last picnic in Duluth, our last cafe latte contaminated with espresso grounds, and our last Fitgers beer was honored by our last MN airport beer at MSP airport. Sara's parents joined in on the drive down by telling us to enjoy our last blue sky. Her aunt suggested that the chicken BBQ on Wednesday was our last dog-free meal in a year.

Sara uses this, plus a smile, to get anything. She would say, "This is the last time I can buy clothes for a year or more." My logical response was, "Read your tags. Where were 90% of the clothes you wear made?" (Sara interjects here to say that many of the clothes from J Crew were NOT made in China.) Despite this argument, she managed to buy nearly a whole new wardrobe in the 3 months before our departure. Add her early birthday presents and we have a new wardrobe and a half.

Here's to a month of firsts in QINGDAO.

Farming in China

"What does this tomato plant in MN have to do with us going to China?" You ask. Well, not much, but we are pleased that our friends and neighbors will be able to harvest some food from our "organic, drought-grown garden this Fall.

We are really looking forward to eating real Chinese food like chicken anti-freeze, weet-sour phonebook and happy shoebox.

When was the last time that the New York Times printed a paper without mentioning China? It seems every article mentions the Middle Kingdom, nowadays.

Some of our friends have hooked us up with guanxi in Qingdao and nearby cities. These will be quite beneficial once we've been over there for a while and want to branch out. But, much of the other China news we hear about from acquaintances and friends is about the pollution, the poverty, the unsanitary conditions, etc - I didn't know this about China, perhaps we will can the whole idea!

If we're lucky they'll have fried chicken ailerons or pocket lady cookery book like they did in the Czech Republic - man that stuff was good! At least 15 cents for a bag of Tsingtao brew can brighten any smoggy days we have over there.