Day 37: Exploring Hangzhou

Day 37 was pretty momentous for several reasons, and it will probably not be forgotten for the rest of my life....

Jessica and I went downstairs for breakfast, finding out that there was only one free breakfast per room. So I paid and Jessica got the free one for the first day. It was a buffet style breakfast, and I grabbed a fried egg, a hard boiled egg, some fried rice, a purple sweet potato (which was pretty good, but a bit mealy), some fruit, some warm milk, some cake, and some orange juice.We took our time eating (having to wander around for a bit to find a table until one was cleared off), and two people took our extra chairs so they could eat with their family.

We headed back upstairs to wait for Rebecca. She told us that she was going to be late, so we waited in our room a bit. Around 10:20, we headed down to wait. Dom and Nick had had a late night (and I edited my last post to reflect this), and they were a bit out of it, so they rehydrated while we were waiting.

She got back to us, saying that she was at the hotel, but sending her the address, we discovered that there were 2 Best Westerns in Hangzhou, so she had to take an Uber that took her another 30 minutes.

Lobby painting at the hotel

We started to explore Hangzhou, catching up with her, taking a few more Snapchats for UC International, and talking to her and the others about lots of things.

We headed down to the phone store, Rebecca helping us translate between the phone store workers and our needs. It turned out that we had to go back to Chong Qing to get our photos taken, but we had until February 6th, so we were ok. To get data on our account, she called the number and paid through her online account, and we paid her back. While we were waiting, we watched a Chinese version of Wipeout, which wasn't as intense, but it had only girls, and they were all in white skirts (which was pretty sexist of them, if you ask me).

We looked for a restaurant that had dumplings, but we weren't able to, because lots of restaurants were still closed for Spring Festival. So, we just went into a random restaurant, and got a private room (which we kept getting at authentic Chinese restaurants for some reason....maybe it's because we're Americans?). Anyway, we realized that the prices weren't cheap so that we decided to split some dishes. We ordered duck and some vegetables, along with a Coke for Nick, and a coconut milk for me. They came in and told Rebecca that there were no ducks left, so we ordered goose instead.

Goose soup

While we were talking, we talked to Rebecca about her impressions of America, and we exchanged other stories as well. The goose was interesting. The soup was similar to the chestnut chicken soup, and the taste was between chicken and duck in terms of gamy flavors. We also ordered some rice, but took our time, enjoying ourselves and chatting.

Every KFC needs Chinese guardian lions

Afterwards, we walked towards the silk marketplace, and Dom stopped into the KFC to grab some coffee. As we kept walking, we happened upon the river, and we stopped for a few pictures. There was also a guy practicing Tai Chi to some music, and a lady doing outdoor KTV, both of which were very culturally enlightening.

When we got to the silk market, we saw that it was in a several story building. This building was closed, but the shops on the outside, bottom floor were open, so we started to wander around there. There were very cheap scarves outside, which we found out were mostly silk blends and/or silk feeling polyester, so I bought a couple of them, as well as a gorgeous silk dress, and a couple 100% silk scarves.

Afterwards, we walked down to another marketplace, finding that it had even more silk. I ended up getting three traditional Chinese fans. We got some snacks at the snack bar when we were done. I got some moon pies, and Rebecca got some sundried tofu that looked interesting.

We tried to figure out what to do next, trying to find nearby museums. There was a sports museum right across the street, but it was unfortunately closed. We stood there for a second, collecting our thoughts. An elderly Chinese couple came up, asking us if we needed help in English, and Rebecca started talking to them in Chinese. They directed us to the bus, and we took it down to yet another marketplace for only 2 quai. We had to give up our seats more than once, as elderly people kept coming on the bus.

Getting off, we wandered around the stores, with me getting a few cheap souvenirs for friends, and enjoying the atmosphere of the area. Nick found a sword store, and as this day was his birthday, he really wanted to get one for himself. He ended up not getting it, but wanted to come back the next day for it.

Chinese soldier statue

While wandering around the area, Rebecca saw a lady with a popsicle, asking her where she had gotten it from in order to try some. I taught her the word "popsicle", since she was just calling it ice cream. We went over to try some, since it had over 100 years of history (like Graeter's in Cincinnati), and I tried the original flavor. It looked like vanilla, but had a interesting flavor of something else that I couldn't quite place, although it was similar to vanilla.

Type of ice cream I tried

There was also a stand where a guy had hand carved owls, and I was very tempted to get one, but as I had spent enough money that day, I decided against it.

We tried to get a taxi to the restaurant where Rebecca's parents were holding their dinner party, but realized that the taxis only held four people, and we had five. Even the Chinese version of Uber wouldn't work, because there were no large cars around due to the holiday. There were motorbikes that tried to take us individually, but Rebecca said that they were going to be way too expensive for us. A large van style taxi pulled up, and we flagged it down, getting it. He gave us the price of 50 quai, which Rebecca complained about, and he said that it was high because of the holiday.

Getting there, we were shocked at how fancy everything was, but we soon found out that it was an annual thing to have the get together at this restaurant.

There were two tables full of people and dishes already out when we got there. The table we sat at had most of the guys, which were Rebecca's father's friends from work that he had made 30 years ago. The other table mostly held their wives and some of their older children. They brought out very tiny glasses of alcohol called Moutai (which they called wine, but was actually rice liquor, I later discovered). I was a bit nervous (if I'm being honest, overly nervous) because I had never had alcohol before, and I was unsure how it would affect me. I told Rebecca, and she proceeded to tell all the guests in Chinese...to my embarrassment. She said it was just to explain why I wouldn't be drinking throughout the night. I had already decided to try it...because why not, I'll only be in China once, but later on, I was glad she said that, as they made innumerable amounts of toasts, and drank a lot throughout the night.

But the dinner was mostly seafood, as it was a seafood place. It was a traditional style Chinese dinner with the lazy susan in the middle, and sharing of dishes being the norm. It was great seeing the comradery of all the friends, who didn't all still work together, but all kept in touch still. Watching the back and forth conversations throughout the night made me feel really blessed to be a part of this special night celebrating their friendship. Throughout the meal, lots of people kept coming over to us to make us feel welcome, toasting us in both English and Chinese, which was a bit tiresome after the first few times, but very kind gestures nevertheless.

The feast when we arrived

Flower made of carrots and cucumbers

After a bit, they brought out a steak for us Americans, which was amazing! Jessica and I sent it back to get cooked a bit more, as it was too bloody for us, but once it came out, it was cooked to perfection. Some of the other notable dishes for the night were a type of bun with a meat ball inside, which Rebecca said was a type of dessert, noodles that they brought out towards the end, and the final dish was fresh, incredibly sweet watermelon. Before I finished the entire meal, I downed the shot of rice liquor to get it over with...and I hated it, as it burned my throat all the way down. Not what I expected my first drink to be, but it was definitely a story to tell. (So I'm definitely not making a habit of that, my dear readers....)

 We also tried corn juice, which was sweet, but more appetizing than we expected. Most of the women drank that rather than the alcohol. And most of the younger people were drinking red wine rather than the liquor....which raised the question of why they had given us the liquor. Towards the end of the meal, the men also started smoking cigarettes, which made me worry because I am pretty sensitive to smoke, but it turned out that the cigarette smoke from Chinese cigarettes is a lot mellower than in the US.

Above: Giving perspective on just how tiny the alcohol glass actually was....

At the end of the meal, we took pictures with Rebecca and her parents to commemorate the wonderful evening (with several other people also taking pictures at the same time).

After the dinner, Rebecca walked us back to the hotel. Nick thanked her for a great birthday, and we made plans to meet her the next morning at ten AM.

I never really felt any affects from the alcohol mentally, which was expected, because I had only had a couple of drops of it. I worked on stuff, chatted, and watched some stuff online for the rest of the night. I also finished uploading the final snapchats for my snapchat takeover and informed the lady at UC International that I had finished. Exhausted after everything, I was still excited for our second whole day at Hangzhou in the morning.

-Zoe