First Trip to Laoshan

Gary and I were invited by one of Gary's new friends to visit Laoshan or Mount Lao. This girls mother has a student who lives on Laoshan. This student and his parents have a home where they have rooms to rent to tourists. Kind of like a Chinese bed and breakfast. They took us last Sunday night and we stayed over until Monday afternoon. It was wonderful. 

The above picture is Melody and her mom. She met Gary at the East Campus and became friends. Now her and her mom are our friends. Below is the family we stayed with. There son is going to take us fishing and more hiking when we go back next time. He is 26. His name is Li Zhaokun. What do you think Sara? LOL.

We had fish for dinner on Sunday and lunch on Monday. A little bit for Monday breakfast. I ate porridge and a hard boiled egg for breakfast though.

Their stoves are cool. They are these big bowls heated over a wood fire pit.

The dinner table. Many types of fish which were good except the flats ones at the back. They were too salty. They were more jerked fish. The abalone at the front left were not very good to me. Many people love them, but I don't. The dried octopus is in the front middle. I did not like it. Tough. I am not fond of any octopus, but this was not my favorite. Everything else was wonderful. I have even gotten to like broccoli. Funny. The shells below I could not eat. No way.

 This is the front entrance way to their house. Beautiful.

The next pictures are the view from the back of the house.

These are the steps down into where our room was. It was a really nice room actually.

Our room was the white window. We could look out at the sea. The next picture is of the bed we slep in. The pink thing that looks like vinyl is plugged in and it heats up. Once you put your blankets down, it heats up where the blankets are. It was warm. In fact, it was too warm. We were just too lazy to turn it down. The bed was a little hard, but not too bad. We had a blanket under us for a cushion and soft pillows.

Welcome to Laoshan is what part of it says.

This tree is 2150 years old. It is, in fact, three trees that have grown together.

 This is the back of their house. During the summer, guests eat outside here on the terrace.

We hiked a couple of different places. Hiking for many Chinese includes places that have stone stairs to get to the top. We did these, but look forward to hiking many different spots in Laoshan especially those without steps. These beautiful villages in the mountains would be a wonderful place to retire. I really liked exploring and getting back to nature. I love hiking and there is even a cave we are going to go visit. Malayna please come visit and we can go explore together!