Wednesday, we participated in the International Day sponosored by the local government. There were 7 large tourist buses for Foreign guests to enjoy the sites around Hangzhou. We had an amazing time at the events we attended and even met a few new cool people that live here in Hangzhou. The day started at Qianwang Temple on West Lake with a display of many Chinese traditions and an "Official Opening Ceremony" with speeches from many high leveled government employees. The emcee was an American professor who teaches at Zhejiang University and is fluent in Chinese, he spoke in Chinese while the Chinese man translated it to English. Quite strange but that is very "China". All of the speeches given by the Party Members were in Chinese and translated to English for all 210 foreign guests (that ... read more

This morning, I participated in the Hangzhou Green Drinks Earth Day events starting with a 8am bike ride through the Longjing area of West Lake, 10am bike ride around the Southern area of West Lake, a BBQ lunch at Vineyard Cafe in the garden area along with free giveaways and a moving screening of "Earth" by Disney Nature at 7:30pm. I meet some amazing people today on the bike rides. The 8am ride was Tim, Australian; William, Junior Biomedical Engineering major at Zhejiang University (#3 in China); Vincent, Senior at Best High School in Hangzhou who is attending Tufts in Boston starting Fall 2012; J & K, American's teaching at HDU and myself. I have met Tim before at many Expat events in... read more

Two and a half weeks ago, we picked out our outfits to have our "Chinese Wedding Photos" taken. A couple we knew did this last Fall and I thought it would be fun since we came to China dating, then became engaged in Hong Kong and now are living here married. We had a blast doing it and a BIG THANKS to my former student for negotiating the package price and details along with translating. I pick up our CD on Thursday afternoon and will post the final photos then. These pictures we shot on our little Nikon S3000. Enjoy!!!!... read more

This past weekend, we headed to Shanghai after I was done working my part time job late Friday morning. When we arrived at the Hangzhou train station we quickly realized we weren't the only ones trying to leave for the weekend as the ticket office hall had lines out the door. Usually it is a quick process, show up, buy a ticket and get on the train. This time it was show up and wait in line for over 30 minutes just to buy a ticket. We had about 45 minutes before our train departed (typically only a 20 minute wait) so we grabbed a quick lunch at BK (Burger King). This was when I had my first soda of any kind in 10 weeks and it tasted great(Orange Fanta), but I now know that my ... read more

This is one thing that blows my mind in China. How does the population grow to the largest in the world, when NO ONE looks both ways before crossing the road? The rules of the road in China are as follows: the bigger vehicle has the right of way. The hierarchial order on the road is as following: semi truck or car transporter, tour or city bus, luxury vehicles, SUV or van, sedans, Smart cars and look a likes, motorcycles, ebikes, bicycles and then finally pedestrians. Everyday, I witness cars that pull into oncoming traffic without even looking. They just honk their horns (sometimes) and go as if they have the right of way. Last week I saw a cop car that caused an accident as they drove like they were "above" the law and Tboned ... read more