Hello all! I'm finally back after a hectic fall semester. Time literally flies by so fast -- I'll be finishing up senior year in less than five months! So so excited :) But enough rambling, the main point of this post is to keep track of what I did during my 5th week in Hangzhou. I'll be putting week 5 and week 6 in different posts because there is a lot to talk about.
I am actually super thankful that I blogged while I was in China. Why? Well, it's been almost five months since I left Hangzhou, and my memory is beginning to get a bit hazy. I've been hesitating to blog about my last few weeks in Hangzhou because I can't remember a lot of things. But thank god I took pictures, and my phone tells me exactly when they were taken. Hooray for modern technology! I also have my trusty Chinese school schedule to help me as well. Better to update now than never, so that I'll have something to look back on years from now.
Tuesday (July 30)
Tuesday (July 30)
The most memorable thing I can remember from that day was my bus ride home. To start, instead of taking only 30 minutes, I ended up riding the bus for a whole two hours. Why? Being the idiotic person that I am, I wondered what would happen if I stayed on the bus past my bus stop. Naturally, I thought the bus would make a complete circle around the city. I mean, I take the 303 to school and back home (using two different bus stops though). They must be on the same bus route (because it's the same bus, duh)! But no, I was wrong. It was on the same bus route, but I had to "transfer" buses (and waste bus fare).
At first, I was a bit hesitant to stay on the bus. I didn't know where the next bus stop was nor how long it would take to get there. Being the person that I am, however, I let my curious instincts take over the situation and decided to stay on the bus. Stupid mistake. The next bus stop was all the way across the bridge from my house (I really should have listened to my host mom. She wasn't kidding when she said that if I missed my bus stop, I would have a hard time getting home -- walking is definitely not an option). As the bus kept moving, the scenery started changing as well. It literally went from city to country lol. Less houses and more dirt/farmland. I had no idea where I was going, but of course, I wasn't too fazed because I THOUGHT the bus was going to turn around. I stayed on the bus for another hour until it came down to the last stop -- the bus station. At this point, no one else was on the bus except for me and the bus driver. Being that this was the last stop, I had to get off. And where was this bus stop? It was in the middle of NOWHERE. It looked really sketchy too. There was nothing but dirt, grass and trash. And the bus driver left me...so I was all alone. Scared out of my mind, I phoned my host mom. She freaked out for a bit, but told me to just get on the next bus back into the city. I took her advice and waited for 10 minutes. Finally, the bus driver came out from his resting area and started the same bus again. And it was a different bus driver too! Thank gosh. I don't think I could deal with the embarrassment if it had been the same bus driver. How could I explain to him that I was on the bus again? Especially after I made it seem that I had somewhere to go after I stepped off the bus, haha. Anyways, I went back on the bus and rode for another hour or so before finally reaching my apartment.
I got home later than I originally wanted to, but I guess that's partially my fault. At least I now know where the bus goes to after my bus stop. And now I know you have to transfer buses because there are two main bus stations for the 303 bus -- the one across from Huanglong Stadium and the one in the middle of nowhere. I will definitely keep that in mind if I ever decide to take the bus in Hangzhou again. Also, I got a cheap tour around part of Hangzhou (even though I saw mostly grass and construction), so I guess it wasn't too bad. Bus adventures are always fun in foreign countries, am I right?
Wednesday (July 31)
Wednesday (July 31)
Field trip to Leifeng Pagoda! It was extremely windy at the top of Leifeng, but the wind felt so nice after all of the heat we had been experiencing. I think I saw lightning strike maybe about 4 times from up there? And thunder kept roaring every 30 minutes or so. It was frightening, yet fascinating. It looked like it was about to rain, but the rain didn't come. There were only grey clouds everywhere. Regardless, the view was still really pretty! I could see over West Lake and all of the mountains surrounding it.
When I came home, I did a little bit of online shopping ;) I literally spent 4 hours searching Taobao -- one of the greatest shopping sites known to man-kind. I bought so much stuff (2 dresses, tons of K-pop stuff for my friends, two TonyMoly cooling sticks for my eyes, a backpack, a bunch of hair ties and bows, etc) and it only came out $40. And shipping is great too. It came about 3 days later! If only things would ship that fast to Hawaii... If anyone knows any good Taobao agents, holla at me! I miss shopping on Taobao so much. Ebay just doesn't even compare.
At around 7 pm, the sky got really dark. Thunder started pounding across the city and there were consecutive lightning strikes. Looking out of the window, I was incredibly scared for my life, haha. It rains and thunders in Hawaii, but never this hard. I didn't think thunder could even get this loud and powerful. It felt like the source of the thunder and lightning strike was right outside my apartment window. Apparently this was a man-made/artificial rainfall, though? Because it got so hot over the summer, the Chinese government resorted to shooting weather missiles into the sky, causing rain to fall. That is some serious business. It was so hot that rain had to be CREATED. Crazy.
Friday (August 2)
5th Friday! This meant it was time for another 友谊 (friendship) activity with the host siblings. And what was the fun activity this time around? Majiang/Mahjong! Woo! I didn't know how to play Mahjong (and I still don't), so I just watched the host siblings play with Francesca and the other NSLI-Y kids on my table. Francesca tried teaching me, but I don't think that turned out so well. I just came out more confused than before.
After mahjong, the Panda Pack (Haley, Michelle, Alex, and I) wanted to go back to the mall by Michelle's place and buy some food. I asked my host sister to come along, but my host mom said no. :/
Ugh, so the noodles guy really pissed us off that day. After buying our food, the workers in the noodle shop made us sit in their shop. We wanted the noodles to go, but they had already put our food down on the table. After enjoying our noodles and eating some meat-on-a-stick, we wanted to leave. But we ran into some problems. Knowing that we were foreigners, the workers tried ripping us off. They made a huge scene about us not paying them for our meal, even though we did pay for it! We paid for our food right after we received it. We kept arguing and arguing over it, but in the end, we just gave up. It was no use trying to argue with them because what could we do? Our Chinese was not good enough to call them out for cheating us out of our money. And I know for a fact they intentionally ripped us off because they kept asking each other where we were from. And one of them kept repeating "美国! 美国! 美国!" I hope they know that we could actually understand them...ugh. Even though we had to fork over another 24 yuan (which doesn't seem like much because it's equivalent to about $4), that amount goes a long way in China, seriously. So pissed. We all hypothesized that this is the reason why Chinese people are so cheap LOL. I'm kidding. But here we were, sulking over losing $4. They even charged us again for the water. I will get you back darn noodle guys! You better watch your backs >:(
After losing our heads about getting ripped off, we decided it was time to leave. No more business for the noodle guys from us! ...Even if your noodles were pretty darn good too! We don't give business to people who rip us off, pfft.
On the way to Sander's house, Michelle was starting to get riled up. First time I've ever seen her like this. "WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST DRIVE ON THE ROAD?!?!" Michelle screamed as the scooters and motorbikes whizzed next to us, taking up the sidewalk we were on. Her outburst was actually pretty hilarious. Oh Michelle. What would we do without you?
Arriving at Sander's house, we found out that Matthew and Sander weren't there. They were still at the Thai restaurant with Rachel. Thinking they were going to come back real soon, Haley, Michelle and I decided to wait it out in Sander's room. Sander's dad came in to keep us company, but he just kept asking us questions about school and SATs. Haley and I just looked at each other like "noooo, please not this talk again." Let me just say that this talk went on for another 2-3 hours. By the time Sander and Matthew came back, the three of us were done. We just wanted to go home. Michelle left first, while Haley and I walked around the streets nearby Sander's house. We got ourselves a Strawberry ice drink before calling a taxi to take us home. The first taxi that stopped for us looked really sketchy. It was so sketchy that Haley and I did not want to take it at all...so we ran away and hid behind these two black cars. LOL. After 5 minutes of hiding, we came out again and saw that the same taxi was still there. Two other people wanted to get into the taxi, but the taxi driver kept insisting that Haley and I were there first. We didn't want to tell him that we didn't want to get in though, so we just kept standing there...until another taxi cab came. And this one looked more legit! We ran into the second taxi cab as fast as we could and had him drive away before the other taxi driver could call us back.
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| Credit to Angelo for this last photo! |
At around 7 pm, the sky got really dark. Thunder started pounding across the city and there were consecutive lightning strikes. Looking out of the window, I was incredibly scared for my life, haha. It rains and thunders in Hawaii, but never this hard. I didn't think thunder could even get this loud and powerful. It felt like the source of the thunder and lightning strike was right outside my apartment window. Apparently this was a man-made/artificial rainfall, though? Because it got so hot over the summer, the Chinese government resorted to shooting weather missiles into the sky, causing rain to fall. That is some serious business. It was so hot that rain had to be CREATED. Crazy.
Friday (August 2)
5th Friday! This meant it was time for another 友谊 (friendship) activity with the host siblings. And what was the fun activity this time around? Majiang/Mahjong! Woo! I didn't know how to play Mahjong (and I still don't), so I just watched the host siblings play with Francesca and the other NSLI-Y kids on my table. Francesca tried teaching me, but I don't think that turned out so well. I just came out more confused than before.
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| cr: Angelo |
Ugh, so the noodles guy really pissed us off that day. After buying our food, the workers in the noodle shop made us sit in their shop. We wanted the noodles to go, but they had already put our food down on the table. After enjoying our noodles and eating some meat-on-a-stick, we wanted to leave. But we ran into some problems. Knowing that we were foreigners, the workers tried ripping us off. They made a huge scene about us not paying them for our meal, even though we did pay for it! We paid for our food right after we received it. We kept arguing and arguing over it, but in the end, we just gave up. It was no use trying to argue with them because what could we do? Our Chinese was not good enough to call them out for cheating us out of our money. And I know for a fact they intentionally ripped us off because they kept asking each other where we were from. And one of them kept repeating "美国! 美国! 美国!" I hope they know that we could actually understand them...ugh. Even though we had to fork over another 24 yuan (which doesn't seem like much because it's equivalent to about $4), that amount goes a long way in China, seriously. So pissed. We all hypothesized that this is the reason why Chinese people are so cheap LOL. I'm kidding. But here we were, sulking over losing $4. They even charged us again for the water. I will get you back darn noodle guys! You better watch your backs >:(
After losing our heads about getting ripped off, we decided it was time to leave. No more business for the noodle guys from us! ...Even if your noodles were pretty darn good too! We don't give business to people who rip us off, pfft.
On the way to Sander's house, Michelle was starting to get riled up. First time I've ever seen her like this. "WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST DRIVE ON THE ROAD?!?!" Michelle screamed as the scooters and motorbikes whizzed next to us, taking up the sidewalk we were on. Her outburst was actually pretty hilarious. Oh Michelle. What would we do without you?
Arriving at Sander's house, we found out that Matthew and Sander weren't there. They were still at the Thai restaurant with Rachel. Thinking they were going to come back real soon, Haley, Michelle and I decided to wait it out in Sander's room. Sander's dad came in to keep us company, but he just kept asking us questions about school and SATs. Haley and I just looked at each other like "noooo, please not this talk again." Let me just say that this talk went on for another 2-3 hours. By the time Sander and Matthew came back, the three of us were done. We just wanted to go home. Michelle left first, while Haley and I walked around the streets nearby Sander's house. We got ourselves a Strawberry ice drink before calling a taxi to take us home. The first taxi that stopped for us looked really sketchy. It was so sketchy that Haley and I did not want to take it at all...so we ran away and hid behind these two black cars. LOL. After 5 minutes of hiding, we came out again and saw that the same taxi was still there. Two other people wanted to get into the taxi, but the taxi driver kept insisting that Haley and I were there first. We didn't want to tell him that we didn't want to get in though, so we just kept standing there...until another taxi cab came. And this one looked more legit! We ran into the second taxi cab as fast as we could and had him drive away before the other taxi driver could call us back.
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