Country Time

After class on Friday Ethan and I hopped a train and then a bus to the crumbling village of Zhujiayu (Jew-Jai-You) for some country time. We ambled around the 500+ year old cobbled streets, climbed up to the pagoda (a newer version of the one destroyed during the Cultural Revolution), and started training for travel in the clingy summer humidity that has finally hit us here in Shandong province.

Zhujiayu, about the size of a postage stamp, is unlike any other place we've seen here in China. It is inexplicably well-preserved AND free from hordes of tourists - a very rare treat here. Many of the mud-brick houses are turning back into earth these days, but two hundred or so residents still remain. Some are elderly and have been living there their whole lives, and some are enterprising young families, like the one we stayed with, who are working away at serving the burgeoning tourist industry and banking on increased business during the Olympics.

Here are some pictures from our time in Zhujiayu. Highlights include: village scenes, bug eating, and a visit with an elderly couple who took us into their home, fed us a delicious lunch (no bugs this time) and then proceeded to drink us under the table. (This is the second weekend in a row that old folks have put us to shame with "ganbei" after "ganbei".)