What have I been up to?

OK, so I haven't been up to that much- mostly homework, running, playing erhu and complaining about how much work we have. So the usual :) 

On Wednesday I needed to venture to 龙井村（longjingcun）which is about 2 hours by bus, and requires a bus change. Of course it was pouring rain and rather cold when I set off after lunch. So I bundled up like the rain lover I am.

A map of my intended route!

So I made it! 

As I perused this sign, I was swiftly surrounded by older ladies asking me if I wanted to buy tea/come to their houses and drink tea. Some of them were assuaged by me saying no thank you, but some of them were more persistent. I have yet to try this famed tea because I'm too wary of being cheated, but I hope when the new harvest comes out I'll go get some. 

Here is the town's exercise equipment! These are all over the place, but this is the first one I took a picture of :P

In the park/historic site, well worth the 5 kuai of admission.

So on the way back I didn't have any spare change/I wanted to see what the countryside looked like, so I walked back to where I needed to change buses. 

I also ran into this memorial hall for heroes who died in the 1911 revolution. It was a serene place, and the first memorial hall I've seen, so it was a surprise to walk past it on the way back to the bus stop.

On Friday we decided to trek to a western style restaurant, which necessitated a bus ride, during which we met an older woman with the best English I have ever heard a Chinese person speak. She had studied English at Beijing Foreign studies university,  and then taught English at Zhejiang University. We all exchanged numbers so maybe we'll see more of her.

On Saturday I took the bus to the West Lake so I could run around it and then run back, and I saw this:

At the lake.

A house with a tree growing from its roof

People drying clothing

Later that afternoon we ventured back to the lake to see a famous pagoda. Of course it started raining, even though that was not in the forecast: )

From the top

Me trying to pose since all the other Chinese visitors were

On the way back to the bus stop we walked along the lake

A pretty clearing

Cats! Doing...

Street food!

Today I went to my Chinese tea research teachers house with Maia my teachers 1-on-1 student, but first we got foot massages, which was great, especially since one of my legs has been acting up, presumably since I spend forever sitting down in my customary leaning against everything position for many hours. I know, I should just stop, but I default to that position. Anyways, after the foot massage, my teacher made us food! 

Her she is, with her husband and their 6 month old baby boy!

Picking us up from the bus stop

His 100 day picture, which he loves: whenever he sees it he gets super excited and smiley.

Unexpectedly, her husbands parents came back from their ancestral home (they had returned to pick tea leaves) so we got to meet them briefly. We were invited back any time, so hopefully there will be more cute baby photos in the future!

So much food for two people! My teacher and her husband didn't eat, I suspect because they would have preferred to eat meat dishes too :P 

And now I need to do a lot of reading, so I hope this finds everyone well!

Tea Museum and more Mexican Restaurant!

For my Hangzhou research class this week, one of my assignments was to go to a tea museum and interview visitors and the staff. Unfortunately getting to the museum required about 100 minutes of public transportation and 2 bus switches, but my roommate came with, so things couldn't go too wrong.  Luckily people seem more willing to be interviewed in Hangzhou, so I got some good answers (if all pretty much what I expected to hear) to some questions about their tea drinking habits and the number of people who visit the museum. Some visit highlights:

In case we don't know how to drink tea.. 

So gorgeous! Hopefully next weekend/soon I'll come back to this area and bring a book. 

I'm at the museum!

Oh! By the way my roommate is not featured in my pics because she had a bad haircutting experience, so now her bangs are not level. I mean, I think it looks fine, but she is waiting for them to grow out more before being featured in any photos. 

Friday morning, before my weekly 10am test, I decided to run to the east lake. The weather was spectacular. The area I ran to had more wild life than previously. But I had to run along some main roads for awhile, during which I encountered signs such as this! (at least there are some nice looking flowers too :) And a traffic cop standing on a pedestal in the middle of the intersection! But my picture of that wasn't too good, so it isn't featured here)

So beautiful!!

More 

I can't help it

not many tourists yet!

On the search for my favorite oatmeal

We went to Mexican restaurant!! It turned out to be rather good- I got a burrito, though a little pricey, ~6 american dollars compared to the 1 I usually spend on a meal.

We stopped by a bookstore- where I found a surprisingly large amount of books translated from English- I didn't get any, maybe next time. Also, bookstores appear to be a more casual atmosphere than most American ones- kids sleeping on the floor, people reading with snacks from outside in the bookstore, but there were books, so I loved it even more.

Older people learning to roller skate, unicycle and dance! Every weekend when I go running in this area I see them.

East lake today- calm waters

with willow

I had solo ventured to the east lake after our mexican food adventure, where I wandered around the lake while reading. When it started getting dark I decided to head back, but after waiting for buses back to campus and seeing that they were all packed, I decided to try the subway. Which was also packed, but slightly less so. Picture below- notice that the tv screen is airing footage of adorable kittens/guinea pig interaction. This is common during busy hours, and I really like this. It's hard to be annoyed about how many people there are when such adorableness is around.

Last but not least, after 2 months of loosing change from my wallets coin area hole, I finally borrowed a  sewing kit and got to work. My years sewing together leather things for my dad finally came in handy. 

Ahhh I'm sure more has happened, but I forget.. I coded a motion tracking opencv thing because I was feeling rusty. I should probably do a cs related project weekly, I plan to, but we'll see how my resolve holds up in the face of increasingly breathtaking weather.

Trying to catch up

One page of descriptive Chinese = 1.5 hours of time for me

80 cent dinner!

My universities F&M

My luggage arrived! After ~1 month :) 

I bought an Erhu and am taking lessons! Can play twinkle twinkle as of now. 

Spring is coming.

I ran to the east lake! So gorgeous. 

Notice anything strange about this picture? Those are bunnies!

More spring!

East lake. Actually took my breath away.

A map of China! I am where that red balloon is, approximately. 

Yay random corridors. 

Lots of older people like to use water to practice characters on the ground all over the place. 

So this was a lackluster post, I promise to have more exciting stories next time- maybe about the monster (?) that runs around our dorm at night, my exciting brush with death, my erhu lesson in detail, my roommate's plant's suicidal tendencies, and our mass despair at the amount of work facing us :) 

Ahhh such a slacker...

So since I have fallen so far behind I am too lazy to give you all the moment by moment recollection I know you've been waiting for ^_^ 

In case you've forgotten, I'm in Hangzhou now!

In short, we went to Wenzheng two weekends ago! (Bc CET gave us 200 kuai reimbursement for any travel we did that weekend, and I find money irresistible, so instead of exploring Hangzhou, we were off!) My roomie had a dentist appointment, so she couldn't make it, but I went with 2 roommates + 1 Chinese friend and 2 other american students. It is an old traditional city, one of their traditional handicrafts is dying fabric- traditional method seen below.

My favorite Chinglish yet I think. 

Even not knowing Chinese, I think it is fairly obvious that much Chinese could not condense to that little English. 

Chinese new year decoration! Here is why it is upside down http://gochina.about.com/od/chinesenewyear/p/FuDaoLe.htm 

(so lazy!!)

Huge old library for scholars, but a distinct lack of books.

I want to live here!

Night is coming

A fountain by the fancy clubhouse in the city.

Street food! I love street food so much. It's a rice cake "baked" into this shape with a red bean paste center and some nuts and a red date on the top. 

We found a swing set!

Night time! We took a boat ride. 

And we say this before we got on the boat, but you know how this good I am at uploading.

We got back to our hotel and played some Uno! We were all freezing :) 

Upon returning to Hangzhou, we discovered the sun had come out, and everyone was sunning their blankets!

Bamboo ladder

More blanket shai-ing! Apparently if one doesn't do this, it is considered strange, as I was repeatedly asked by my teachers and other chinese roommates whether I was, so I did. My blanket then smelled like the sun.