Pretty Much just the West Lake

We're on Spring Break! Which means that I went to get some tea with my tea teacher, we tried lots of different kinds of green tea and some oolong too. 

Preparing the tea to drink is complicated if you do it the traditional way- you shouldn't drink the first seeping, instead you pour it out (those little statues change color if you pour hot liquid on them). 

A statue of what appears to be a frog on a carrot, at the tea shop, but I'm pretty sure it has a different meaning than that.

At the University store, buying sticky-notes, I came across this game.. "Close all your eyes"

It rained! And everything smelt great.

Lots of apartments. 

Everything is blooming!

A Convenience shop with high hopes.

Last weekend I met up with a friend from Andover, Joel, and his friend from Beijing, where there are both studying abroad. I always forget how nice it is to talk to someone from Andover, and spend some time reminiscing, it reminds me I'm not the only one out there whose friends have heard way to much about their high school. 

We went to a Starbucks after trying to meet up and go to the Tiger Spring. Some communication confusion meant we were on different ends of the lake, and then we found out the spring closed earlier than we thought it did. Plus we couldn't find taxis, we suspect because it was changing shift time. Anyways, so this is the view from the Starbucks! It's really really nice.

More Starbucks view. This is the first one I've been to in China, and I must say the location can't be beat.

Joel noticed a terrace on the second floor, so we moved up to get even better views! That lighted up building in the distance is Lei Feng Ta, the Pagoda I went to a couple weeks back with Nikki ++ . Of course now that the weather is so nice, the mosquitos are out, but despite the small swarm hovering in the air around us, we didn't get bitten. Joel had a flight out at 22, so we tried to find a place to get a quick bite to eat, but everything looked fancy, so Joel asked one of the street vendors where he had gotten his food and we got pointed in the direction of some more reasonably priced options. And they were off! Maybe we'll meet again in the summer, I hope so at least.

So I decided to go for a sunset run to the West Lake, on the way I saw a protest! There were tons of cops and everyone was filming this, I couldn't understand what they were saying but I showed a recording to my roommate and she said they want higher wages. 

The water was super clear!

And you can't see the background, which was nice and pre-sunset clear, but you can see me.. 

Sunset!

You can see Hangzhou, the city! I'm on the North side of the lake, the city is on the east, and there are mountains on the south and west side. 

Never get tired of the lake, sorry guys, this blog is pretty much just the lake. 

People were flying kites.

And that's it! I haven't been up to much, cooking, erhu playing, running, researching who I want to write my thesis on, reading Harry Potter, sleeping.. Oh! Today we're going to try to make Pizza, we'll see how that goes, and Friday we're going to the mountains for an adventure at the least, and hiking at the best.

Cooking and Midterms

Ack! Sorry about the delay! We had midterms and I guess I procrastinated in other ways than posting.. 

As I've started to cook more food for myself ( I recently acquired a nice pan to cook things in) I have been frequenting our corner market, which is indoors, possibly due to the large amount of rain we get here ;) In Yunnan, most of the markets were outdoors. I'm recognized by all the salespeople here already, and for some reason everyone seems to think foreigners just want to buy tomatoes and cucumbers. It's really nice to get such fresh produce, and to be sure that the thing I'm eating has no meat in it ! But I loose out on the experience of eating in a cafeteria with other people, so I think I'll alternate days or something.

I'm not sure why this seems so strange to me, but buying eggs in a bag was quite the experience!

As a group activity, we went to a sichuan style restaurant! Notice the strange chandelier thing.. 

They cooked with fire! It was very impressive!

We went to an Australian restuarant for some meat-less burgers, which were delicious! Jeremy photo-bombed

Doing situps, I noticed an adorable white rabbit hopping around, it was super friendly.

I drank this, not sure how the rice would be incorporated. Of course, there was black rice just sort of mixed in with the strawberry yogurt. It was different, but still good.

My weekend study spot 

Everything is blooming!

And I also went to the West Lake.

I can't stop myself from posting these

And my erhu teacher! So adorable. So patient. I will practice so much this week(spring break!), hopefully my fingers will be able to move one at a time instead of sort of involuntarily moving as a group in the near future.

Tea House and more!

This is the tea my tea teacher gave me! Notice how big the leaves are. It is the best tea I have ever had. It is from 安徽 Province, and has a light flavor, not bitter and not sweet. Sorry my description is so basic... The bad news is my teacher told me it was an expensive variety, the good news was I re-seeped the leaves 7 times and until the end the flavor was pretty consistent. When my teacher and I go to a tea store, I'll see if I can find some more, or maybe something similar. It's really good! You should all try it if I manage to locate some :)

So on Wednesday my activity was to go to a tea house! At long last, an excuse. 

The tea house is the largest in Hangzhou, people come here to talk, play cards, eat, do business and relax. As usual, I also had to interview people, so I made my way around different tables. 

The food.

Yum.

At long last! I try the famed 龙井茶! Notice the slender smooth leaves. This is right when I got my tea, so the leaves are all still at the top. As they become more saturated, they sink. You add more hot water at your discretion- there is pot kept heated over a small flame by all the tables. 

Oh! About the flavor- sort of bitter and very strong, which is probably because I got the cheapest (but still expensive) variety. 

Some one else's tea. A lot of the women at the tea house preferred to drink flower teas, and the guys to drink green tea.

My view!

I noticed the typo while at the tea house.

One of the reasons people prefer to come to 青藤 tea house is because it's located right next to the lake! So I went for a stroll after my leisurely afternoon (leisurely other than the interview part of course)

Then I ventured into a McDonalds to take this picture for you guys. McDonalds here are "high quality" and offer things that look like Starbucks should have.

On Friday I went urban hiking and walked past a bookstore. So I went inside, spent way too long, but look what I found! 

Running to the lake yesterday, I took a new route which I like better. The view is gorgeous for pretty much the entire run!

Also found while "hiking" some delicious snacks. I noticed a lot of people were crowded around a booth, so I approached and asked one of the customers what their favorite flavor was, and they offered to let me try the kind they were buying, reassured me that this was an excellent price, at which point the vender noticed me and gave me a slice to try. It is very good, and next time I'll try more flavors, I think I was too flustered to think to try more at the time. 

Back to running views!

So many instant noodles!

I made soup! It's questionable, but I'm soaking some beans for the next round. Notice I used our "kettle"- we are finally using it for its intended purpose!