Our Last Day Trip

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Today we had our very last excursion; it’s a little sad, but the day was a collection of random events to make it interesting. We took a bus to Longjing Well which is a famous spring. The water is clean enough to drink from which is rare here. Then we walked to a nearby village where Longjing tea is grown. The valley was so pretty with the cute little houses and curvy road and the tea fields on the mountain sides. As soon as we entered the village, the villagers came out and offered us tea. “Tea? Tea? Ni yao cha ma? Hen pianyi! I give you good price!” We stopped at one of the oldest buildings in the village where Mao Zedong visited once and took a very serious picture at the table in front of his picture. Miss Li then asked us, “Well, should we find a villager who will feed us?” We were all a bit taken aback by this. She actually expected us to ask a random villager to provide lunch for nine strangers? But I guess that’s what they did here.

We found a house and the lady brought out a table for us. Then she brought us a preying mantis; this was very random. I’m not sure if it was a pet or she just found it somewhere, but I was surprised any kind of insect was still crawling around with the weather this cold. The mantis did look a little stunned and was moving very slowly. She put it on the table, and eventually Brittany started playing with it. I was sitting as far away from it as possible. The village lady brought out a big cloth bag full of tea leaves, and Miss Li negotiated a price for us. That was the expectation of the villagers: if you eat here, you’re supposed to by some tea. We also got to try the tea, and it was quite tasty. It wasn’t as bitter as some green teas can be in the States. And the food was amazing! One of the best meals I have had in China. We had eggplant, cabbage, chicken in a clay pot, pork, eggs with green onions, and roasted peanuts. Then a peddler came walking down the street banging a little drum. He was selling strawberries, and they looked like the perfect end to our lunch that we bought some. No lie, they were the sweetest strawberries I have ever tasted! The Longjing Well must be magic or something.

After lunch, we walked down the street and into the Nine Creeks Valley. A stone path wound through it, crossing nine creeks along the way. There was a moment where I felt sick, but thankfully it passed quickly, which reminds me…Friday after our internship, Brittany and I met our Chinese friend Jenny and her roommate for dinner and badminton. They took us to a restaurant that had a cafeteria style service, with a tray line and the various foods sitting out. Nothing looked especially appetizing, but I picked a few dishes for my tray and paid for the food. After dinner we played badminton for an hour then Brittany and I met Guilliani to go to the night market. I had bought a few things when I started to feel nauseous. I decided to leave early and got on a bus. I was praying I could make it home before really getting sick, but fortune was not so kind. I ended up throwing up on a bus in China. Luckily I had a few plastic bags from shopping, so at least I didn’t throw up all over the bus. It was probably the best time to do it too because it was dark on the bus, there were only about fifteen people on it, and I wasn’t sitting very close to anyone. But there was no way I was staying on that bus, so I got off at the next stop and took the next bus that came. So that’s why I had the momentary sickness on Saturday, but it passed.

We came to the end of the valley and saw a pond with clear water that was fed by a little waterfall. There was an arched stone bridge right in front of the waterfall, so we all went over to get a closer look. There were stairs climbing up the hill next to the waterfall so we climbed up and saw the start of the spring. Miss Li was waiting for us at the bottom so we couldn’t keep climbing, but on the way down we saw four or five couples taking their wedding pictures. It really was the perfect place to have those done with the waterfall and smooth pond as the background. I think China has the most beautiful places to have your wedding photos taken.

After we left the waterfall, we got on a bus to go to the ­­­­Qiantang River Bridge. This bridge has an interesting history. It was built in 1937 by Mao Yisheng. This was the first modern bridge in China that was solely designed and built by the Chinese. When the Japanese invaded China, the emperor told him to blow up the bridge, so they couldn’t cross the river. The bridge had only been finished for 89 days. After the war, he was told to build the bridge again. Another war came, and he was told to blow it up again. After this war, he was told to build the bridge a third time, and that is the one here today. It’s interesting because this bridge is still used today, and it has lasted twenty years longer than it was supposed to while two bridges built within the last decade collapsed after only a few years of use.

We also went to the Liu He (Six Harmonies) Pagoda. This pagoda was originally built in 970 AD, destroyed in 1121, and rebuilt in 1165. The pagoda was built to calm the tidal bore that comes up the Qiantang River. The name comes from the six Buddhist ordinances or the six directions: heaven, earth, north, east, south, and west. After climbing down the very steep, winding stairway, we got on a bus and finished our very last excursion.

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