PanJin

Warning this is rather long...and just part one of my trip. Last weekend some friends and I decided to take part in a trip to PanJin. A lady, Fairy, organized it and we went along on the ride. PanJin is in the Liaoning Province and about a 4 hour drive. It is known for its reeds and the mysterious red beach. We started out bright and early on Saturday morning; we left at 7:15. We boarded the bus excited to be on our trip. There were 11 teachers from DAIS and 1 from the Canadian school in JinShiTan (like 10 minutes from our school). Two couples brought their adorable children, our total was 15 people. Driving there was fun as we hadn’t seen some of the surrounding area. The leader of our trip was Carol, a very sweet girl that works for Fairy. She asked if we wanted to stop to use the bathroom and we all said yes, but hesitated because let’s just say Chinese public bathrooms aren’t the best. We got to the stop and Carol asked us on the mic, “Does anyone need shitpaper?” (sorry mom and dad there is no better way to say it) Kara and I were the only ones that heard this and were dying laughing. I guess they only use toilet paper when they go #2…yuck. Anyways we are all pros at public bathrooms now so we had our own “shitpaper”. Let me just say I wouldn’t wish going in the public bathrooms in China on anyone…well maybe some people, but that’s a whole other story. We all went potty and found some yummy Chinese treats(sarcasm, although I did find some chocolate filled koala bears!), Kara even found Red Bull! Back to the bus we went.

Some of the scenery on our way to PanJin

We got there about 4 hours later. All the kids, Matthew, Isaac, and Sarah, were fabulous on the trip. I don’t think I would have been so well behaved when I was their age. Our hotel was very elaborate. We waited while Carol checked us in and then went up to our rooms. Walking up to our rooms I almost hit my head in the doorway, it was so short! The rooms were nice, comparable to a Holiday Inn in the States. The bonuses in the room were nice little “presents” available, such as oils, pretzels, robes, etc. We were all excited when a maid came in and took them from us, I guess they figured since we weren’t business men we wouldn’t use them. We put our stuff down in our room and headed to eat lunch. Lunch was so good; we ate traditional style (think Italian Family style in the States). They put all the food on a huge lazy susan and then you spin it around and get what you want. They had some pretty interesting food; I wasn’t as daring as some were. They served us so much food it was crazy!


Our Hotel...


Kara checking out the presents


Lunch on the first day...

After lunch we went reed picking to make our zongzis. A zongzi is like a Chinese tamale. We drove to the reeds area and got out of the bus to see the crabs and reeds. We were all thinking they were going to be real crabs, no they were just huge statues of crabs. For some reason the Chinese have this fascination with statues of large animals. Crabs, geese, seals, you name it I have seen it somewhere in China. We had to wait for a boat to take us to the reed picking area. All 15 of us fit on this little boat, let me tell you it was low riding! We went along the river slowly and were like tourist taking pictures of everything.



On the way, I love this picture!


KILLER CRAB!!!


Pretty stream surrounded by reeds

Once we arrived at the reeds area and were let loose to pick. It was pretty funny because we really didn’t know what we were looking for to pick. We spent about 2 hours lost in the abyss of reeds. At one point we were walking through them, no path or boardwalk just following the person in front of us. Thank goodness it wasn’t like that one the stilted boardwalk! We were all joking how this is another example of OIC (only in China). OIC would you find a place to pick reeds that doesn’t have any ropes or railings up to protect you from falling off the boardwalk you are walking on 7 feet above the ground. It would be shut down in a second in the States because of safety issues. We finished picking and headed back for more food.


Kara and I after climbing to the top of a lookout

Dinner was just as good as lunch, except more food. They made us crabs, fish, and duck. The duck was delicious, crabs were hard to eat because there really wasn’t much meat in them. They showed us the live crabs before we ate so we knew they were fresh. That is also why they keep the bones and beak on the other animals. After we were all gorged with dinner it was time for the hot springs. That is for another post…

Fish anyone?


Guess it was good :)


How about some duck?

Zai Jian,

Mei mei (this is my new name when playing basketball, because Megan is too hard to say? I just hope it doesn’t mean stupid American!!)