Midnight Snuggle Struggle

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Today we woke up early and headed to the Lingering Gardens, a traditional Chinese Garden. Here we were able to walk through the stone paths through bonzai, lotus lillies and Chinese opera performers. Although the gardens were absolutely beautiful, I think they highlight of the tour was the small group of random Asians that started following me around. A woman and her husband, about 60 years old asked to pose with me in front of the pond. A few minutes later, a group of high schoolers crept up behind me, when I turned around they all shrieked and then asked if I would take pictures with them. I guess I must have been the first (approachable?) white person they've seen...unless their was some inside joke I was missing. At least they didn't call me Lady Gaga like they did in Thailand.

After the garden we headed to a silk factory. Here we learned all about the silk making process which was significantly more complicated than I had realized. Qi (our tour guide) showed us silk worms from all stages, egg to moth. We then learned how the cacoon is made of a single thread of silk, and in order to make silk, factory workers must find the end of the silk of the cacoon and then pull all 1.5 miles worth of thread out. They have machines which do this more efficiently and wrap 8 threads together, however, these machines still looked like they came out of the 1800s. The silk factory tour ended in a store where you could buy high quality silk in every form. Many of the girls tried to buy clothes, but an angry Chinese woman kept yelling and giving everyone extra larges because they were "too big!!!!" Not wanting permanent body image issues I stayed far away from this woman and stuck with the scarves instead.

After lunch we headed to Hangzhou, the next city in our tour. The ride was about 2 hours by bus, most of which was spent sleeping.

Upon entering Hangzhou we boarded another boat. This time on the West Lake. West Lake is a popular vacation spot, a medium sized lake surrounded by rolling hills, pagodas and ancient bridges. Again, I was accosted by random Chinese people, this time from the city Changdu. A grandmother made me pose on the boat with her. I'm still not sure I get the joke...I was on a tour of all white people, I'm not sure why I was singled out...unless of course it's because I was the palest blue eyed person on the planet. I've been trying to play the role, flashing thumbs up whenever possible. Suggestions welcomed for any other ultra American stereotypes I can fulfill...maybe stuffing my pockets full of hamburgers.

Urgh, I would kill for a hamburger right now. We've eaten nothing but fried pork and white rice since we've landed. If I never saw pork again I'd be okay.

Abby and I ended up crashing at 8pm from our shenangians the night before. What we thought would be a restful night of sleep ended up being pretty eventful. It's best explained as 3 phases.

Phase 1 (8pm to 11pm)

I get up to use the bathroom. Not able to find the lights, I go in the dark, then stumble back to my bed. It's pitch black in the room and I'm having trouble finding my bed. I feel the footboard and crawl across the bottom. Sudden I feel something beneath me and then immediately hear Abby scream. It took both of a minute but I realized I had passed my bed and made it to Abby's. Abby thought she was being kidnapped.

Phase 2 (11:05pm to 4am)

We can't figure out the AC, but since it was pretty cool when we went to bed we figured it wasn't a big deal. What turned into a blissful 70 degrees turned into an inferno. I wake up spread eagle in by bed trying to figure out how I can cool off. Eventually Abby says "I dont know if you are awake, but I can't sleep". We fumble for the lights then sprint to the AC unit. We eventually got it going, but we were all spun up. We found the 1 english channel (CNN China News) and started watching that.

Phase 3 (4:30am-ish to 7am)

At some point we both fall asleep with the lights on and TV blaring. This was the best sleep of the night.

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