San Ge (Three)

This is the phrase we heard over and over again, with hands shoved in our faces, holding out 3 fingers. Their look of utter amazement shows that they are truly stunned that we have 3 children. I am not sure if most Chinese are even aware that you can have more than one child. Our tour guide asked us if our government told us how many children we can have. At first, it’s interesting to get the kind of attention we do, lots of people stopping to stare, trying to talk to us, touching our children on the faces and hair, trying to peek in at Ryken asleep in the sling next to me, taking pictures of us all, but mainly the children. Then, it gets annoying. I just have to keep reminding myself, they aren’t doing it to be mean or annoying, they truly are interested and intrigued. We were told by someone that many of the people have never seen foreigners at all, so to see us along with two childen and an infant, it is really amazing to them. Apparently, most Chinese babies are not taken out in public before 6 months to 1 year, so to have a Western baby out who is only 2 months old is truly a sight to behold. I also had a lot of thumbs up from many of the older generation of Chinese – after I responded that, yes, indeed, all three children are mine. I am not sure why this was, but they gave me a big smile while doing it.

The trip itself to Qingdao was fun. It was on a beach but the weather was a bit chilly for beach fun. We did hang out a bit on the sand and the girls went in the water the first day – it was freezing and I wouldn’t even put my toes in for long! Our hotel was nice, rated 5 stars by the Chinese (I would have given it 3 stars) and they provided a crib for Liz and an extra bed for Ashley. Ryken slept with us. Everyone slept well after getting tired out from walking and playing all day. It really helped out with the jet lag in getting everyone back on track. There were hoards of people everywhere, we were told it is the busiest tourist season in China. Everywhere we went, it was crowded and crazy. We attempted to go to a place called Underwater World, but there were just too many people for us. We also attempted to take a boat tour ride around, but they were jam packing people on the boats like sardines (along with having to stand in line for hours and Chinese people aren’t known for patiently waiting their turn – they fight for one slot ahead) and we just didn’t feel that would be safe for us or our children. We did do quite a bit of walking around the town, seeing some of the architecture. The city was occupied by the Germans in the 1800’s (I think) so there were some interesting types of buildings around town. A lot of them reminded me of chalets and quaint swiss villages. Qingdao is also famous for it’s beer – TsingTao beer – started by the Germans, now Chinese operated. We had some, thought it was ok.

One day, we rented a van and a tour guide to take us around. That was interesting. We had an English speaking tour guide, along with a Chinese tour guide. The Chinese guy pretty much said about 10 words the whole trip and the English guide didn’t know much and for some reason, wouldn’t ask the Chinese guy when we wanted a question answered. It was a bit strange, but oh well. She was the one who wanted to take us out on the overly packed boats. We had to make her go back to the van and move to our next destination, which was the TV tower that you can go up to the top in. We waited about 45 minutes in line to go up for about 1 minute, then needed to go back down, but the line was LONG – Ryken was crying, Ashley was crying and it was very frustrating. Our guide managed to talk to some staff there and get us down the service elevator after some food had been brought up – thank goodness, waiting in that line with crying kids would have driven everyone insane. The tour guide also wanted to take us to some mountain area to see the tea farms and some Buddha temple. The traffic getting there was horrendous and we had some interesting moments on the way up. It was beautiful up there, although we could have skipped seeing the temple – the girls were CRANKY (as was I by that time) and there were many, many stairs to climb in order to see the temple. Not a fun outing at all.

Let’s see, other interesting items to note. The hotel had a little bowling alley (2 lanes) and golf center. We went bowling on the last day as it was too cold to be outside for long. The sign for the bowling center had a picture of a naked lady with very pronounced boobs. It was pretty funny – I guess they equate boobs with bowling balls?!

There was also a big “jumpy castle” out on the beach for the kids. It was named DSNLY (I’m guessing this was supposed to be DISNEY) and had a fake Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on it. They were both very weird looking, but the kids were having fun jumping all around. One hard thing to get used to here are the open crotch pants on toddlers. They have the nice outfits, with a hold down the middle of their pants, for easy access. So, on the bouncy castle, there’s a kid jumping and playing and bouncing around with everything hanging out for all the world to see. I don’t see how hygienic this is as other kids are playing right where his naked butt was sitting! Ewww….but what can you do?

All in all, we had a good trip and enjoyed seeing a different part of China. Hopefully, we’ll be doing quite a bit of travel and will get to experience many different things here.