Gary and I are almost done with our week vacation to celebrate both Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. China celebrated their 66th Birthday today. We were invited to come spend a few days in Weifeng. One of Gary's students lives there and invited us to come meet her family and give us a tour of Weifang, the sites and the food.
This is one of the main squares in Weifang. Usually this is a busy place and you can go up in one of the towers, but it was closed because most museums and government run places close on Mondays.
Aria and I
Would this make a great Christmas tree?
We went to a old town which has made handmade kites for hundreds of years. They still do it now.
Gary making a print. It was fun for him to do it. We have his picture that we can put in a frame, so others can see what he did. You make the picture by putting ink on a wood carving with a brush. Then you carefully put the paper on and use another piece of wood that has material on one side to press the paper into the carving. Just like Gary is doing in the next two pictures. You can see the final product below, too.
Aria, her mom and dad, and me
Making the kites by hand. Aria's family bought Gary one that looks like the eagle above. We have it on our wall in our apartment now. We do not want to fly it because it is made of light wood and paper. It could ruin very easily.
As you can see by how smooth this cement is that many people have used this as a slide to get to the ground instead of using the stairs. I know I am almost 50, but I just had to try it. It was fun!
Aria taller than the door. Suzette just shorter than the door. Pretty funny.
The American and the Chinese waving to our adoring public. Just like the Presidents of the two nations did this past week.
They had statues of the Chinese Zodiak or year symbols. Gary and I are both horses. Aria is a dog and her parents are both chickens.
This is the restaurant we went to for dinner and the food we ate. The one that looks red and yellow on the left side of the picture is the best Kung Pao chicken I have ever eaten. Spicy yet sweet. Amazing. If you ever get to Qingdao, I may have to take you to Weifang to have this dish! There is one dish that we did not get a picture of before we ate it all was fish heads. Yes, Gary and I ate fish heads. We did not eat the eye, but ate around it. The meat was tender and delicious.
These next two pictures are of the place we had breakfast on Tuesday at and what we ate. Meat wrapped in bread. So deliciously greasy and yummy. I don't normally eat very much breakfast, but I ate two of them and had some Tofu soup with it. It is a traditional Weifang breakfast. Yummy!
Weifangshihuyuanbowuguan. This is the name of another old city we went and visited on Tuesday. Another wonderfully historical experience. We love to see how people lived a long time ago. This is one home and it goes on forever it seems. Of course, the man had more than one wife.
What a wonderful time we had in Weifang. Aria was a great tour guide. All the Chinese we know are so very nice and generous. Because we were their guests for two days, the only thing we paid for was our train tickets. They cost about $22 round trip for each of us. That is not very much. Aria's family paid for our hotel room, all our food, our entrance into all the sites we went to see and even gave us gifts. They gave us a spice rack filled with American spices, Gary's handmade kite and a beautiful paper cutting for me. We are so grateful for our wonderful friends and look forward to be able to do the same for them.
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