September 29, 2003

Hangzhou and Li Shui

From WuYi Shan I had a really horrible night train ride to Hangzhou. Was a night train and I was issued a standing ticket! Yikes... Sat several different places, but ended up in the food carriage... I may have slept for an hour or so on the 14 hour journey... Watching the sunrise over really lovely mountains and fields was a bit of recompense...

But the real treat was one night in a REALLY nice hotel (most hotels would have charged two days since I checked in at 7am) so it wasn't terribly expensive for one day/night even got two breakfasts with cornflakes out of the deal :)

In the afternoon I went for a walk around West Lake which is very famous around China. It's really lovely even though it's prety developed. Along the way I met a Chinese guy (Allen is his English name) and his "Sister" (Candy is her English name)... we walked and talked for a while and then had dinner. Allen is quite an amazing man. He is a Bilogigy teach in the North East of China. He had two weeks off work and was in town visiting his "sister"... His American (I would say English, except he speaks American :) is exceptional. It's really hard for me to understand how someone could develop such an amazing vocabulary and ease with a language without having spoken with foriegners more than a handfull of times. Anyway, they invited me to Li Shui to stay with Candy's family for a few days. What an absolutely amazing experience! I spent the afternoon of my second day in Hangzhou in Candy's shop, wich is a sports clothing shop in a huge building full of mostly Shoe stores... Then we took the bus (3 hours) to Li Shui.

Candy's hubby, Da Liang (means big Liang, which is his family name), was at the bus station to meet us with their car, which we had to push start because they were having problems with the battery. We went out to dinner with some school friends of Candy's. Allen convinced me to try Cicadas (sp?) looked like beatles... Was hard to eat the first one, but easy to eat the send, third, fourth, etc :) The restaurant was very sparse dirty concrete with plastic tables and chairs, on the edge of a really lovely little lake with neon animal signs all over the place :) We had some spectacular fish!

The chinese way of eating is really great. You have a big stew in the middle of the table and lots of dishes that everyone shares. Then there is the drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. Mostly ale.. You make as if to knock glasses with someone except you just touch your knuckles, you say "Gambe" and shoot the whole glass. Then fill it and go again... Generally you don't take a sip without engaging someone in this ritual... And you can't say no! At leat it's not poilite although, very luckily I received some leeway on this point as a foriegner...

After dinner we stopped at a family friends house. Candy is involved with Amway and had some business to do with her friend and I got the vague impression that I was being shown off :)

The first day, Allen, Da Liang and I took the car to be repaired and then went sight seeing. The chinese seem very civilized about this. We would walk around for half an hour then stop to eat or drink something... Take lots of photos (I have millions to post and finally a place to post from so expect loads of photos in the next few days)... then repeat... We had another group dinner, at which I tried snales (again, thanks to Allens encouragement ;) The taste was quite nice, but I don't really like the texture...

The following day we all (including Candy) wen't to visit Candy's mum, sister and brother. Had a lovely lunch with her mum. Then visitid big brother and then big sister. I didn't quite understand this. We didn't seem to settle anywhere. WE just sort of jumped from house to house. Got to tour some really extravagant (by Chinese standards) houses and drink a little tea. Then whisk off to the next house. We all (except big brother who rode is motor bike) crammed into the car and went to a community college where Da Liang had been a Phys Ed teacher many years ago. We visited the local leaning tower of... not sure what it was called ;) ... then drove out to a farm house in the boonies for a rather wild goose dinner... Was very good... I even liked the blood Tofu made with Goose blood... although again, the texture was a bit strange... This dinner did my head in, because big brother took significant advantage of his position as head of the family to induce a lot of drinking :) Again, I had to play the foriegner card after a small bottle of wine (more like sweet whisky)... Got drunk for the second time on this trip... and paid for it the next morning!

Day three, was introduced to one of Candy's associates who owns a kindergarden and offered a job teaching english. I really wish I had not been hungover for this meeting! Everyone was very understanding, but I still hate feeling like that! We had a big group lunch and headed out to the University that looks brandspanking new (with loads of empty dorm rooms.) for a bit of a tour. Part of the job there if I take it would include teaching at the Uni. It's all a bit nebulouse, but also sounds like a very good deal... Business is conducted in a very round about way here...

Then back home, I packed and got the bus back to Hangzhou. Had a really hard time finding a good hotel, ended up paying more than I wanted to, but that apparently is just how Hangzhou is...

After a really good nights sleep, did some chours, then got the tourist bus to to the Dragon Well. Probably my favorite Chinese tea is Dragon Well (Lung Ching) which got it's name from the local well. Part of the mythology of this tea states that it tastes best if you brew it with water from the dragon well. The well apparently got it's name because the riples on the surface of the well look like a dragon... I was rather dissapointed that the well is now too pulted to make tea with :( but I washed my hands and face with the water and tooks ome photos. I also met a Taiwanese couple on the bus (Esther and Allen are their English names) who I hung out with for a few hours. We went to a local tea house and sampled the tea... and watched a guy making the tea in large wok. Unfortunately all of the tea I tried here was not very good... although it was very fresh, which I enjoyed experiencing.

From the well we headed to a place called Tiger-Leaping (I think) which is another well surrounded by a large garden. This well is not poluted. They demonstrate this by filling a bowl so full that the water raises about half a centimeter above the rim (due to surface tension) and then they float coins on top of the water! This is now supposed to be the best water to make dragon well tea with... The water was very fresh, but the tea again was mediocer.

Allen, Esther and I went our seperate ways after the Tiger-Leaping. I headed to the China National Tea Museum, which is incredibly informative. Lovely grounds and everything is in Chinese and English. I took about 100 photos mostly of the descriptive text in the exhibits :)

Was a really lovely day despite not finding any good Dragon Well tea. The following day I wandered around town, met an American guy and English gal in the Foriegn Language bookshop and wandered around together for a while. Got some tips about teaching English in China. Then hooked up with Allen and Cindy for dinner and a stroll down a rebuilt classical chinese shopping street... Said sorrowfull goodbyes and went to bed...

This morning I took a double-decker train to Shianghi. Spent the afternoon walking around town. It has been a really action packed few weeks and I'm ready to take it easy for a few days before heading to Japan. I expect I'll hit some of the tourist sites here in Shianghi and try to ferret out some good tea houses. But also take a break from all the input :)

Loads of love to you all!

Posted by binduwavell at September 29, 2003 09:19 AM
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