So I got back from Hangzhou (杭州), or well somewhere close enough, since we were a little a bit outside of Hangzhou where there was no cell reception, no internet, and only sometimes spotty internet. It felt more rural than ether Fenghuang or Zhangjiajie, but we could still see the flights from Hangzhou Airport on their first assent. Still, it was nice to be somewhere where the air was nice (for China), I could see the sky, and I heard rumor that you can actually drink some of the water! Some of my friends, my professor, my professor's new cat, and myself all piled into my professor's small Volkswagen "We!". We had some lunch at a street dude who served the local rice noodle dish and some Chinese fruit I had once before but who's name I forgot. We then split up to get some food for dinner at the local Chinese BBQ place. Apparently Chinese BBQ restaurants will sell you ingredients for a barbecue if you run pick up some local vegetable dealer to vouch for you for 关系. We got the meat though than, after a hike around some of the lovley rivers, we made our way to our professor's house, or our professor's brother's house since our professor's brother actually lived there. Dinner was good, it was Chinese BBQ (if you couldn't tell that) and setting one of those up is a bit of a process. It the grill basically a metal box with some air holes that you pile as much charcoal as you can in and start cooking. Food was good, mostly well cooked, and came with the local brew and some Chinese moonshine. Finally we had some tea and went to bed. The morning was actually really impressive, the mountains actually had this silver shine that didn't capture well on camera that was super impressive. We than made our way back to Shanghai, but not before a stop for wantons. At our bathroom stop just outside of Shanghai city limits we got some zongzi (粽子). A zongzi is a type of rise pyramid stuffed with some type of meat, it isn't my favorite snacky Chinese dish but it isn't bad. I had a similar thing in Bangkok, Thailand but I liked the zongzi more. Overall it was a fun and somewhat tiring weekend, I am glad I went to one more Chinese city before I leave.
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I wasn't planning on taking another trip this semester but my Neo-Confucian Philsophy professor set up a rather neat sounding trip to Hangzhou for this weekend. It will be a short trip, two days one night, and a very cheap trip, but it should be cool. Hangzhou is a city in Zhejiang Provence noted for its famous West Lake (西湖), Neo-Confucian philosophers, and increasing importance as a center of eCommerce. Wikipedia also says an extension of the Kaifeng Jews formally lived in Hangzhou but now there is no remains of the Hangzhou Jewish community.
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
November 2021
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