From backstreet boys to erhu

Ahhh I'm sorry it's been so long! Letsee, I went hiking again, to different mountains, and the path turned into this, 

Which was nice, as this was the sort of hiking I was looking for. And eventually some sort of signs started to pop up, maybe there had been a race there recently? The Ascis logo was on them, it looked pretty official, so I was reassured on was on some sort of route.

Eventually I emerged from the wilderness, and started heading east to get back to the lake/bus routes. It appeared that I had entered some sort of a resort by way of a back route, so I tried to quickly make my way out of the premises. As I neared town, I saw this house, which also had its own large pond with those some nice stone walkways over the water, all really old looking. Of course they probably have a terrible mosquito problem in the summer, but I think it would be worth it. 

Skip ahead a couple days, Spring Break is over, we're all back in the daily grind, except an easier version since it was our first week back. I was running on the track the other day, and there was this man, maybe 60 years old (hard for me to tell) and he was doing pullups, which I was impressed by. And then, he started doing those pullups where he would lift his entire body up and then continue up until he was vertical and upside down. After some googling I'm still not sure what that is called, but I found a video which pretty much sums up the early morning scene on the track, (there is a different area with more pullup bars). Excuse the music during the video (rap, so if you're young turn the sound off : ) ), and imagine all the people doing the exercises are 40-70, and that everyone but me is proceeding about their business. Video here

On that Friday, we went to the tea museum (yes, the one I went to before) and then to a tea village for lunch and some tea picking! This was the vegetarian table.

Tea fields!

I picked some.

We then got to try roasting it, and we bought some fresh tea leaves. 

I've taken to taking random pictures of Chinese people, since I'm featured in so many family pictures in front of famous landmarks, I don't feel as strange about this as I maybe should. 

At the grocery store

We returned to the Mexican restaurant! All four of us ordered the vegetarian burrito. Ahhh I miss Juanitas. But these are very good too.

There were more tables stacked up on the back of bike under this bridge, I think this is a common Mahjong meeting spot.

Last Sunday I decided to walk to the West lake, since the weather was fantastic, and do my reading outside instead of living in my dorm room. Once I got there all the benches were full (of course, it was a Sunday) so I sat down with my back on a wall and with a nice view of the lake. I started reading and right away, I noticed shadows on the ground by my feet. It turned out that a foreigner reading characters was a rather remarkable event to the people walking by me. And so, they would gather around and watch me read, sometimes remarking to each other that I was in fact, a foreigner. Eventually an old man started to ask me some questions, but he had a very heavy Hangzhou accent, so I have a feeling I didn't always answer the question he had asked. He lapsed into silence, and stood by me watching the lake/observing the people who would gather around me. He started introducing my background to people who had gathered, but sometimes they couldn't understand him either. It was nice that he was there, it meant I actually got some reading down, and that when a large group of guys would come by and start asking "do you have a boyfriend" type questions, he sort of stared at them, and they moved on. But after about 40 minutes of this, I realized I wasn't going to get much reading done there, so I asked the old man if we could take a picture together and then I started walking to a more remote part of the lake.

Lots of wedding photos being taken around the lake.

I eventually settled here, where there was a chinese flute player playing some lovely Chinese melodies, and got down to my reading. It was amazingly beautiful, with the weather, environment and flute player. Plus it was sort of an island, so there wasn't anyone walking by.

Chinese police.

Sleeping on the bus and playing with phone.

So one night we were studying in our common room, and it was discovered that the Backstreet Boys are coming to Shanghai, while we're all still in China. Of course, the concert is during finals week, which sparked some controversy, but everyone was really excited. Eventually Tao Laoshi decided to move around finals so everyone could go. Well, not me, since I'm not sure who they are/I was probably listening to NPR when they were popular instead of them. Maybe I'll tag around to Shanghai, we'll see. 

Adorable baby with the look I often see on Chinese people's faces when I walk by.

We went to an elementary school as part of a class, this half semester, my Hangzhou research topic is Youth Education. 

The classroom was very similar to an American classroom, 32 kids in this one, which was 1st graders. We stayed for a Math and Chinese class, both which I liked alot. The kids had to formally greet the teacher, keep certain postures during class/while reading, and had to stand up when answering questions. But the math class was great, it focused on concepts and was already introducing division. It was also lively, and there was no gender divide when it came to answering questions and whatnot.

After class I was swarmed by students, and I wanted to take a picture of this phenomenon, but they noticed my phone, and so I took a picture with some of them instead.

After 2 classes they have a break, which consists of running around the track, their teachers joined in too, and then coming back to drink some yogurt, which some of the kids put on everyone's desk. (This is a public school)

As we left we noticed some of the older students fan dancing. 

And here is a new vegetable market I went to!