Mid-autumn festival and the journey to the ultimate foreigner city

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This past week I went to Hangzhou for Mid-autumn Festival!

Hangzhou (pronounced Hong Jo) is an incredibly laid-back-clean-foreigner-friendly-beautiful city in the Zhejiang Province of China. Most pictures you could take while in Hangzhou are post-card worthy. West Lake is at the heart of the city with scenic mountains surrounding in all directions. There are two causeways that were built in 1089 by the city governor so you could walk across the lake. Another great thing about Hangzhou is free bicycles. Most people have a bike card and they can just swipe it at any station and use a bike for free for up to an hour. If they use it for two hours it only costs 1 yuan, if they use it for three hours it only costs 2 yuan, and so on... (2 yuan is like 29 cents).


I inevitably traveled to Hangzhou with my trusty sidekick Peter again. We met and stayed with a fellow teacher from the Shanghai Institute who has been teaching at Zhejiang University (one of the most prestigious schools in China) after a five-hour hard-seat train ride.

The first day we wandered around the North part of the lake until it got dark and went to an expat bar just next to Z U. Ran into Lebanese, Italians, Spanish, Americans, British, you name it… and here’s the kicker - no Chinese pop music.

The next day we woke up to meander around the lake. We walked through a few parks, a pedestrian touristy street near the lake and stopped by a pagoda for an excellent view. After lunch and the pagoda headed out on a boat to an island at the center of the lake. The island was flourishing with lotus gardens and buzzing people. Afterwards we went to dinner at a restaurant famous for Hangzhou cuisine and ended the evening with trivia night at another expat bar. I felt like I was back in the states again at this bar.

Next morning we climbed up Precious Stone Hill visiting a cave, Baochu pagoda and a “match-making” temple. The feeling went from hybrid Buddhist-cheesy young couple game show to Raiders of the Lost Ark to a summer view of Madison Wisconsin.

Took off and now I’m back in Ma’anshan. The Crummy part about Chinese holidays: you have to make up classes you missed on the weekends. So I taught yesterday morning and this afternoon. I’m enjoying teaching and don’t have to work too much. Its like teaching is a part-time job and learning Chinese is my other part-time job.

This weekend is the start of National Holiday. I’ll be going to South Korea and visiting the wonderful Mr. Pat Owens.

Til’ next time.

Greg

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