Blogs from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, Asia - page 4

This past week was crazy trying to see everyone that we wanted, pack and decide when we should leave Hangzhou. Thanks to Kirsten we decided to treat ourselves to some R&R at the Portman Ritz Carlton in Shanghai for 3 nights before our flight on Tuesday afternoon back to the USA. We met up with Crystal for drinks at Starbucks on Tuesday evening. WOW, I hadn't been to that Starbucks at 8pm, only 8am before work, but it was the place to be as it was packed with young professionals socializing with friends. Blows my mind at times how much the coffee scene has grown in this tea culture since we moved to China in August 2009. Crystal had finished her first year of her Pre-Masters program in Glasgow, Scotland so it was great hearing about ... read more

On Sunday afternoon, Peter and I both received texts from fellow Business English teachers that we would have tea at a teahouse from 10am-5pm. I knew I had to work at FESCO until 11:30am so I could meet them at the teahouse around noon. We both thought this was a very long time but that we would show up for 1.5-2 hours to socialize with our fellow colleguages. When I arrived at 11:45am a few of the female teachers were already there eating and drinking tea. They asked if I wanted to eat and I responded with an of course as it was lunch time. I was lead to a room that had a buffet of snacks, fruit, veggies and soups. Peter, Mark another American foreign teacher and York a Chinese teacher arrived about 20 minutes ... read more

Let me make the title more clear...Class of 2009 is when the students started college at WXP. All the grades start with the last 2 digits of the year they entered college, so instead of it being the Class of 2012 like in the US it is Class of 2009. Onto the activities over the last few weeks. On the evening of May 29th, instead of having my typical night elective class of Oral English I took my students to the Spring Variety Show that kicked off the Graduation Celebrations. My freshman Business English majors were bummed that they had class and couldn't go but a few lucky students are in my elective Oral English class and got to go for class. I enjoyed watching the students perform and figured it was a great way to ... read more

We had our third field trip of the program last night, and we went to a park that was all themed like the Song Dynasty. There was a lot of old typical buildings and sights to see that were a part of the Song Dynasty in China as well as a show at the end of the night. We went to see the show titled "The Legend of Romance." This was about the legend that is the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet. Although the little bit that was spoken was not understood by us, most of the show was dancing and reenactments so it was alright. They all wore traditional costumes and was really cool to see. Unfortunately it rained the entire day so it didnt make for too much fun. We also had another ... read more

As this weekend comes to a close, I figure that it would be a good time to look back and reflect on it. Yesterday we went to one of the malls in Hangzhou, it was 9 floors high! And that is the smallest of all the malls in Hangzhou. Apparently the largest has 4 seperate buildings. Building A has normal clothes, Building B has luxury items, Building C is full of restaurants and building D is a compilation of all of them. That is insanely crazy! We had a lot of fun browsing the stores and shopping, even though most of them were insanely ridiculously priced! I did find a shirt that I liked for a price that was very good, even by US standards. After that, there was a small salon in the mall and ... read more