Goats milk anyone?

When we were recently on vacation in Xiamen, South China. I took some fun pictures in downtown.
It appears to that goat farmer brought the goats to town by van to sell fresh goat milk. Yes, this has to be the icing on the cake for the strange things we have seen. We just saw sheep lungs for sale at the market two days ago. Yes, lungs, that was strange too... Lung casserole, steaks, stew ... how to cook? Anyone have a good recipe?

Now, this farmer and his wife brought the freshest goat milk to town. This probably is a self serve goat milk station. The goats are clearly ready to be milked. They are even anxious to be milked. They have milk to give. Farmers do not give it to customers however. They sell it and the fresher, the better.

The farmer simply milks the goats, sells goat milk, takes and fills orders with fresh milk. A lucky day happen stance sighting like this could allow you to milk the goat yourself. In any event, there is no fresher goat milk anywhere in the world market place. Don't you agree?

Mmmm, Goats milk anyone?
Jay Theline

Wonderful Travels

If we don't end up coming back with BYU in Jinan we are looking into teaching here, in Xiamen next year. This place is made up of many islands. Xiamen is the largest and the one we are on Gu lan gu Island is smaller and a little like Carmel in California, Chinese style. We have had such a wonderful time here and have meet some great people who are willing to help us if we come here next year. It is quite close to Hong Kong and of course my favorite place Guilin, a place I would love for you to see. The place we are staying at is quaint a little like what you would see of college students staying in while on a trip through Europe. The first room didn't have much of a window so I upgraded it to $6 more a night and we have a window that looks out on to the street. It is on the second floor from the window, but on the first floor from the building. There is a place right next to us that is really cool, but it is about $60 to 100 a night, this one is $27.

Each day we have something great happening. Sunday we went to church at a young couples home and I had the opportunity to give the closing prayer on the telephone meeting (virtual meeting) skype meeting, all over China. They use Skype or you can us the telephone and they have Sacrament meeting and Priesthood / Relief Society one week or Sunday School the next week, always Sacrament meeting. We have the largest Branch in the world, it takes in most of China. It was this cute family with two little boys. They are here while she finishes her Dr. degree, he finish with his law degree this last year. He has a job when he gets back to LA this summer. They both went to Taiwan on their missions so they both speak Chinese. They live right on the ocean in an apt. that is really good price. So if we come next year we will hopefully get a place on the ocean. On our way back today the Gu lan gu Island we meet another couple, she taught on another island that is part of University and I think that is where we would teach and she said she would help us if we came. They have a really small twig here, like 4 couples, and that is always changing.

We start every day thinking we are on a mission and that we need to do a humanitarian project or tracking (without talking about the gospel.) It makes our days a lot more fun.

Jay has had a cold but have been making him drink ginger (we had to talk to someone who could speak a little English to give us the right name for ginger) That was fun and we got to see a lot of interesting place on Xaimen Island. Jay got a stomach flu one night and sometimes being sick in a place where very few people speak English is a little hard, but then we also know how to pray and that to help a lot. We do enjoy being together and only doing things together.

When I was in Hawaii I learned to do toasted cheese sandwiches with the iron. So at the beginning of our stay in Xiamen I went and got a iron these are some pictures of Dad making a sandwich.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Xiamen, China, on the eastern coast, is warm and wonderful to visit. We have stayed for 10 days and enjoyed the weather and the sun and surf. No swimming is allowed as all the water, including the ocean there, is too polluted. The scenery is just beautiful here.

Chinese love art and we visited this art museum and took a gaggle of photos of pots and plates, etc. This was in a small tourist city near Suzhou, called Zhouzhuan where were there for only day tour.

Jay at the fruit market in Gu Lang Yu, an island off the main Island of Xiamen. We were intrigued by the size of these two fruits: One is a giant Mango and the other two are giant tangerine oranges.

We arrived in Suzhou, China by train. Trains are cheap.

A Brass wall mural in the ancient house of the ruler of the town of Zhouzhuan.

In Suzhou, we saw this handicapped Chinese man riding in his wheelchair, a motorized trike which was really cool.

Jay wants a wheelchair like this one if he ever needs it.

On the train from Shagahai to Suzhou. The trains travel at abouit 100 miles per hour. It took about 25 minutes to get there by train.

This scene is in Xiamen where we enjoyed a tourist park which great views. The only problem was that they charge Jay $15. yuan for a small bottle of water. Usually it costs $2. yuan in town. This constituted a serious international incident in his mind. He has never forgotten that price gouging incident and is determined to file a format complaint with the Department of Tourist Price Gouging.

People's Square

Well we were in Shanghai we went to the People's Square.

The square

We found all these papers hanging down with Chinese writing, we found they were advertisements for marriage that parents had put up to help their one child get married. on the paper there was things about their schooling, how much money they made, what they owned and drove and so on.

I guess it works because there was a lot of people hanging things up and then writing down what was said on them. Most of them were for people over 30 - 35. This woman knew English and was explaining everything to us.
This one with all the people around the one man was setting up marriage for their children.
Jay and I had a wonderful time and took a ride around Xiamen, it has some of the most beautiful beaches. It really is a lovely city.

More Pictures of our adventure

Ferry to the island, free for the ride over, to Gulangyu Island, 75 cents of ride back to Xiamen

Everything is brought by these little boats to the island.

Once here the stuff is pulled by hand carts to varous places. We think that is where we got the idea for the first hand carts.

The only way to get around is golf carts about 1 to 4 dollors around the island or to walk.

The island is always clean, it reminds me of Disneyland.
--
Dana Lee Thelin,
Shandong University,
Jinan, China

The Bay View Inn

Bay View Inn. Where we stayed.

At Bay View Inn the first floor is the hostel part and the rooms are really a good price. Each level up get more expensive. They showed us the one that was $90 a night and it was really nice with a Jacuzzi for a bathtub and painted really nice and a wonderful deck off the room. It was on the 4 floor. Remember in China they do not put in elevators until they have 6+ floors.

Our room and me pumping up our air mattress. In Suzhou we lost our pump so after sleeping one night with out our air mattress we knew we needed to find a new one. The island is really simple. Lost of tourist shops but no hardware stores. Well we had some one write down the word for air pump in Chinese and we set out trying to find one. It was great to get the help and us doing the acting of what it was like and finally after going down a couple of back streets we found an bike pump. It is hard to believe we found it, because bikes are not allowed on the island.

The island at night

An amazing underground aquarium.

Far end of the island-- we took a golf cart to see this lovely garden area

This inside the garden. We thought this monkey wall caves would be a perfect place to play steal the flag.

Dana Lee Thelin,
Shandong University,
Jinan, China

Pictures of our travel fun.

Each day we would walk to a new China experience. On this day we walked a short ways to a wonderful park...

Since we had the day to see the city so we went to another garden park (Budda) It was quite nice and had this beautiful painting of the history of Shozuo.


Doing my favorite thing, talking and acting in English to the people on the street to find what I am looking for. I am amazed at how many people we have been able to help us. This group actually took use back across the bridge to this place. We bought tickets for the next day.
The bike that took us to a place to find a bus for a trip. This is the one that we nearly ruined his tires with our weight.
Discovering what we call New World shopping center in Jinan, small shops with everything half the prices.

Discovering what we call New World shopping center in Jinan, small shops with everything half the prices.

KFC in the 1 mile mall with streets and stores behind the main part.

old town on one side and new town on other

city center in Shozuo mall

At one of many statues in the mall (down at the bottom)

Jay reading in our apt. in Shozuo = it is in the English style as is the whole hostel.

outside of the room on patio off our apt.

opening the door and walking into the apt.

Women cleaning clothes and veg. at the city well.

lovely garden that goes on forever

boat ride, leaving dock

we stayed in the old town that was had cannals running every direction

where you can come and get water from the well on our street

I need my pocket sewn and this lady had a little shop on the canal to do it.

We saw a lot of work going into fixing up the old part of town, that was exciting to watch. Instead of knocking down the old buildings and putting up sky scrapers they were trying to re-fix the wonderful old parts of the town.