Blogs from Haining, Zhejiang, China, Asia

The afternoon of June 12th I did indeed find my co-workers and I went with them to a meeting with city officials. It had some interesting maps but other than that I was lost. I used the time to study my Chinese. That's the one good thing about these meetings -they force me to study Chinese. Because my hotel room is my sanctuary of English so I find it hard to be motivated to look at Chinese. I also came up with the hilarious idea to create a Chinese drinking game where I select a few Chinese words that I understand and drink whenever they're said. First, I need to aquire some alcohol. Some possible words are you, meiyou, yao, buyao (Jeff's favourite word!!), women, nimen...there are lots of words that are said a lot and ... read more

After the Forbidden City, I headed to CAUPD to meet up with my co-workers to head to the airport for our trip to Hai Ning. After we were checked in at the airport, my supervisor took me into the first-class lounge which had fresh fruit juice and REAL toilets with soap and toilet paper. It was so exciting. We boarded the plane around 5pm for an anticipated 5:15 departure. But then shortly after getting on the plane we were told we’d be delayed half an hour due to weather conditions. I guess in Beijing smog counts as a “weather condition”. Luckily I am reading a really engrossing book series so I just kept reading. Then we were told we’d be served dinner…all before taking off. Two hours later, we finally took off. It was such a ... read more

Back to Hangzhou again, this time we come to see the tidal bore of the Qiantang river, that is the same to the Amazona's river from Brazil, and they call it as "Pororoca" in Brazil. The phenomenon happens when the sea invade the river, and the river must have a funnel shape to the sea side. The tidal bore from the Qiantang river is the biggest of the world, it can reach 9 meters high of the wave. There is a show in Hangzhou, at West lake, it was made by the director Zhang Yi Mo, the same person did the opening ceremony of the Olympics games in Beijing. This show tell a story about a couple of the lovers, and also use the tidal bore of the Qiantang river as part of the show, because ... read more