So the next day started out interesting right off the bat. Getting up in the morning, I worked on some stuff and went to breakfast by myself. I headed down and got the free breakfast for myself.
I had serious trouble finding a seat though. Both times I tried to get a seat, I pointed to the seat, and the people thought I was asking if I could take the seat to another table and they nodded, but once they realized I wanted to sit with them, they shook their head no. Discouraged, I gave up, going to stand in the back. As I ate, I looked around for a seat, and just when I saw a table being cleared, a man sitting near where I was standing motioned to me to sit in the empty chair at his table. I graciously took the chair, and then he got up himself, and motioned for me to take his chair, which was a bit odd, but I did so anyway. A man then sat down next to his daughter, and I ate my breakfast of cereal, grape juice, cake, sesame seed bean paste balls, a fried egg, and a purple sweet potato with them in silence.
Soon after, Rebecca got there, driven by her dad, and we started to go to the silk market that we had gone to the previous day so Jessica could exchange her dress for a larger size. After that, Nick wanted to go back and try to get a sword again, so her dad dropped us off at the other market, driving back home. While Nick was trying to gain a weapon (unsharpened, of course...for now, at least), we all split off, and I ended up being the lone one without the group. I wandered around to look for them, and eventually made my way back to the McDonald's as a landmark and waited for them there.
Catching up with them, they all had waffle cones (actual fluffy waffles, not the hard stuff) with ice cream, which looked absolutely delicious, so Rebecca took me back to the side street with all the food vendors to get one. It took longer than expected, because an Indonesian lady and her daughter were ahead of us, and Rebecca had to help them order. This was made more complicated by the fact that only the young daughter spoke English, and somewhat incomplete English at that, but we got it all situated quickly.
While we were wandering around the market, I also got a couple keychains with people's names written inside the painted beads, and we stopped by the handmade owls booth again. Rebecca managed to talk the price down from 55 quai to 30 quai, and I was so happy to pick out my owl made of wood and grass. It's absolutely adorable, authentic looking, and it might just be my favorite souvenir from this trip so far (other than the orange jade bracelet I'm wearing pretty consistently). Owls are my favorite animal after phoenixes, so it's nice to have a memento in owl form. We also saw the same height challenged person (to be politically correct) from yesterday standing outside and advertising the haunted house that we had seen the day before....but we decided not to go in, opting for a better use of our time.
What happens when Buddha tries to do yoga
The amazing waffle and ice cream concoction
We started to head out of the market, going towards the West Lake, and met up with Hardman, a student of ours who Rebecca had texted to hang out with us because he also lives in Hangzhou. Nick tried to get another sword, as well as some hats, opting not to get either.(His first attempt had failed due to China's laws about not being able to ship swords anywhere in the country.)
We started walking out, and saw an interesting museum with the Illuminati symbol, so we decided to go in and investigate what it was....turns out it was a slightly more legit haunted house. There were characters including Hugh Jackman and bloody Santa Clause in the lobby, which kind of freaked us out. Regardless, we decided to move on to go to the West Lake and the Broken Bridge.
We headed up towards the West Lake, wandering through a forest park of sorts to get there, learning some of the history from the signs, and taking lots of pictures along the way.
Phoenix engraving (since phoenixes are my favorite animal)
Getting there, I was blown away by the beauty of it. Hardman said it was a manmade lake, but it was at least a few square miles large with mountains in the background.
We walked around, enjoying the beauty of everything. Dom and Nick stopped for a coffee at Costa Coffee (which is a British brand, but is ubiquitious here), and as Rebecca, Jessica, Hardman and I waited outside for them, a walk up salesman came up to us. He started demonstrating an electric pad muscle relaxer electric pad sort of thing on Hardman. He asked the rest of us if we wanted to try, we all declined, and he eventually walked away. We looked through the window, seeing that Nick had seen the whole thing, and when Dom walked up, we started to "talk" through the window, mouthing a real conversation.
I walked away to take a few pictures, and when I came back, Dom and Nick were outside, and we got into a mock argument, one where friends throw jabs at each other, but you all are happy that you know each other well enough to do that.
We came upon a place to rent boats several times....we batted the idea back and forth on whether or not to go on one, but decided against it as the more authentic boats didn't go all the way to the islands in the middle, and the bigger boats would be too crowded.
In the middle of the park, there were a few trees that many people were gathered around, and we discovered that there were squirrels in some of the trees, and doves in the others. Apparently squirrels aren't nearly as common in China as they are in the US, so they were a real attraction. They were a slightly different species, with faces more like sugar gliders than American squirrels. But the doves were a sight even for us, since we're used to pigeons in the US.
Before heading to the Broken Bridge, we headed to get something to eat. We headed down the street into an indoor shopping mall.
Came upon this sign at an ice cream place.....
We went to an udon place, which is a Japanese noodle place, and I got some udon with chicken and shrimp on the side. I wasn't terribly hungry, so I couldn't eat it all, although it was really good. Udon noodles are a lot thicker than Chinese noodles, so it was an interesting difference.
Afterwards, Nick wanted to get some chapstick at the convenience store, and then go into the Toys R Us to look at Lego sets (because we are all big children here....wasn't that obvious?) We found out Legos were even more expensive in China, and Nick's curiosity satisfied, we headed back to the lake.
We saw a tower that was a Buddhist monument in the distance, and we all decided to go up there and see what it was. It took a bit of time and navigating, but we eventually found the entrance.
After heading up some steps, there was an option of either more steps or a hill. Dom went up the steps, Hardman followed him, but Rebecca and I followed Jessica and Nick up the hill. It was harder than it looked, because the ground kept crumbling beneath me, and I had to pull Rebecca up a few times, but we eventually got up there.
The tower was absolutely huge, and it was an absolute relic of Chinese culture. There was also a couple pagodas near it, and a few mountains.
Rebecca having fun
I climbed up on an outcropping of rock, staring down upon the city, and a guy came up to me, trying to speak to me in Chinese. I apologized that I didn't speak the language, and as I saw Rebecca and Hardman coming up, I started talking to them. Rebecca joined me on the top, had a brief conversation with the man, and had a good talk with me too.
Nick and Jessica decided to climb the mountain (despite the sign saying not to), and Dom was AWOL, so I took a picture of them being adventurous, and being tired myself, decided to go sit down with Rebecca. They soon found Dom was also on the mountain, so they explored a bunch with him while we waited.
We saw a few men with a puppy, and went over to pet the dog. Rebecca told me that she thought the men might have it to take home to cook, unfortunately, because she heard the man say she had just caught it. The dog was also scared of people and very skinny. It was only about 3 months old and I was worried for it. I was hoping it was a misunderstanding as I tried to comfort the little girl dog. Then another lady came up to pet the puppy, telling Rebecca that she had rescued a dog that was about to be eaten before, and asking them if they were students at the nearby university. We stayed for a while, chatting and trying to calm the puppy down, and Rebecca saying that maybe she had misunderstood their intentions after hearing the men talk some more.
When the others got there and we went to leave, the puppy seemed a bit calmer, and I felt happier about leaving her with her owners, since the lady who had saved the other dog was there with her.
The leaf makes it look as if Buddha is sticking his tongue out
Heading back toward the Broken Bridge (using the steps down), we walked across it and down for a while, finding that one of the shops was a 10 quai store. (Sidenote: there were lots more shops near this wonder and near most attractions than there would ever be in America. Rebecca just chalked it up to the fact that there were more people in China.) But the 10 quai store was our equivalent to a dollar store. There were lots of knockoffs, including jade and other stones, so I steered clear, but I got a multi pack set of bamboo chopsticks that seemed fine (bamboo grows a foot a day, so it's pretty cheap) that I could give as gifts.
Walking back down, we saw the mountain that we had just climbed was all lit up for the night, and we chatted amongst ourselves, enjoying how gorgeous everything was.
Before the light show, we decided to get dinner, which took a while due to the holiday, but Rebecca and Hardman ordered us a bunch of dishes. It turned out that the cook was still on holiday, so we couldn't get the chicken dish, but we still had plenty.
Chinese salad...with an interesting dressing
Fried dough with sweet flour on top
Fish with very strong vinegar sauce
Some sort of gelatin soup...my least favorite dish of the meal
Man tou
The Man Tou was the same type of thing that we had had at the Chinese dinner last night (a sweet bun with meat in the middle, but this one had us put the meat in ourselves. We had to get two orders since there were 6 of us and 3 buns per order. We also ordered fried rice, and by the time I had gone to the bathroom and back, it was almost gone! I asked for the rest of it just as Nick was scooping it onto his plate.
After that, we headed back toward the pond to see the light show that Rebecca had talked about earlier. Getting to the spot where we were before, we realized that we couldn't hear it very well, so we walked up the street even further to watch it. It was the water version of a fireworks show, synchronized with Celine Dion's song "Power of Love". It was absolutely amazing, and a great way to end our time in Hangzhou.
Rebecca's phone had died at that point, so she had to try to figure out a way home, so she used Hardman's phone. We waited on Hardman in order for him to show us where the taxis were, but after he did so, he had to take a bus home too, because the taxis only fit four people. We got home quickly, and I spent the rest of the night relaxing and catching up on some work.
-Zoe
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