Hangzhou

Well I am back to Jinhua after 3 days in Hangzhou; and just like getting back from any trip it is nice to be home.....its weird to say that this is my home...but it definitely felt nice!

Our weekend was good, busy, but good! I am EXHAUSTED! We got a phone call on the train from one of the other teachers to see if we wanted to go for a drink when we got back; I literally laughed out loud at the thought, I am surprised I'm still awake to write this blog (but I obviously ALWAYS make time for blogging).

I am sure I will forget lots of things that happened and then blog about them later! Which reminds me, have I mentioned the pee eggs? The cook eggs here in pee that comes from young boys, and they eat them...I'm not lying! Is that not disgusting?

The train ride to Hangzhou went by so fast!!! (there are different speeds of trains here and like home there are ones that make more stops, we had a fast train with few stops and then tonight we had a slow train with many stops, it took twice as long to get home as it did to get there). The train station was more modern than I thought it would be, which really shouldn't surprise me but it still did. It seemed more like I thought it would when people beside us in line were just horking on the floor; lovely!

Before we knew it we were in Hangzhou and looking for a bus to get us to the hostel. Luckily more people in Hangzhou speak english than here in Jinhua, so we were able to figure it out...eventually. Once we got off at the zoo as instructed we then had to find our actual hostel, which again was pretty difficult, but we made it there, to the "4 eyes youth hostel"..... I enjoyed it, but in the kind of way you laugh at things that can't get much worse. We saw a cockroach ON the bar at the hostel, had some large bug in our room, and blood stains on the blankets....definitely going back; recommend it to all of your friends!

The first night we walked around West Lake (which is the main thing to see in Hangzhou; it is beautiful) and went for drinks. The first place was a jazz bar and everything was more expensive than it is at home. The next place was "Club 79" where we ordered some "Budwelser" and also ended up getting 12 Harbin for 80 RMB (that's like 13 bucks lol). Then we continued down the street and went to this place that had live music, she was singing Call Me Maybe when we got there, so obviously Mel and I danced up a storm. We were the favourite show of everyone there; I have never been stared at as much in my whole life as I was this weekend. People came up and asked for pictures with us, everyone screamed hello at you, it was nuts. We then requested Taylor Swift and she played "Hey Stephen" it was awesome (mainly just I was excited though)! Then we went on the search for food. Instead of my typical McDonalds run after the bar we stopped at the first restaurant we saw and got chicken, bok choy, tomato and egg...it was DELICIOUS! Then we went back to sleep in our super awesome hostel room.

The next day we walked into town (it took forever, the only time I have walked as much as this weekend in my life was when my friend Megan and I went to New York City). We also went to a Buddhist temple which was pretty neat. I got DAIRY QUEEN! YUM. A peanut butter blizzard; it was so tasty. I then stopped at H and M, yes they had an H and M. I almost didn't go in, but I am glad I did, because it was so nice to be in a store with stuff you recognize and sizes that could fit you. I bought a shirt and a cardigan (it looks just like one I tried to steal from my friend Annalisa, I now have my own..but hers was still better)! It was awesome. Eventually we went back to the hostel and then back into town for dinner. We went to this Spanish restaurant that was pretty tasty and then we just hungout after.

Today we mainly just walked around. We went to the Wushong Square (I'm definitely spelling that wrong) and I bought a ring and some earrings, it was HUGE! We didn't come close to seeing all of it. And there were SO MANY people there. I'd like to go back again and go on a day where I am less tired, because it was a lot to take in! We met an American couple there who we chatted with a bit, seeing other foreigners is SO nice sometimes. We also saw a HUGE fight between some lady and a younger guy, he probably tried to steal something from her shop; it was terrifying! We went to this department store they have in the city right before we left because the guys we were with new it had cheese. It seems like such a small thing, but I miss cheese; there is hardly any in China. I thought it would be chocolate I missed most, but it is way easier to find than cheese. I bought some cheese and chocolate and halls at the store; I was so glad they had halls, between the pollution and all of the people smoking, my throat has been SO sore! I opened my cheese on the train (because I'm super normal) and just ate part of it like it was a small snack, Melanie was dying laughing at me.

The train ride home was long and smelly and the girl across the aisle from me kept crying on and off; it was awkward. We got to Jinhua and all of a sudden the cab drivers wanted to charge us 70 RMB (for a 20 RMB ride) to get back to the school; we ended up finding a cabbie who just measured it with the meter (Shocking concept really) and we got back safe and sound. It was fun to arrive at our school because today was the 110th anniversary celebration (oops we missed it....) and the school was all decked out and lit up; it looked cool. And our bikes had been moved (apparently they also don't think the bikes they gave us are very nice, since they moved them to be less of an eye sore when people came to the celebration. I never did find mine, but I didn't look too hard.

Anywho, I am exhausted, I will post photos tomorrow and I am sure I will think of other entertaining things that happened!