It's been a while, blog! Sorry about that. In my defense our wifi is pretty spotty. We've done a whole lot since our last update. We met our conversation groups and built kites together (mine was pretty rubbish), and we also went and saw West Lake. It was pretty touristy, but really pretty too. It's essentially a big lake by the city, with lots of gardens and little restaurants. It's really famous, apparently.
We also went on a tour of several museums (a tea museum, a silk museum, a historic rich guy's house which included some pretty sweet caves - caves! In a house! - and a traditional Chinese medicine museum) on a big tour bus. That wasn't so much fun - I don't really like being in a mob of stereotypical white tourists. I'd rather sneak off and do my own thing with a small group. Jen feels the same way, so we end up doing that a lot.
But what I really want to write about is today! We had a day off, so we went off to Hangzhou to sight-see. I guess I should explain - we're not actually living in Hangzhou; we're in a smaller city called Xiasha, which is in the "Greater Hangzhou Area", for lack of a better term. We can take a bus and the subway to get into Hangzhou. Anyway, a couple of us went off to see a famous temple just outside the city. It took a long time to get there, but it was definitely worth it. It rained on and off all day, which would normally ruin an outing, but the rain actually made it better. The temple was out in the mountains, so everything was green, green, green! The rain made the mountains all misty, so it looked really cool.
Anyway, I said we went out to see a temple, but we didn't actually end up seeing the temple. Oops. It cost extra to get in, so we went the cheap route and climbed around the mountains instead. There are carved Buddhas in the rocks all over, and stone steps to climb up. We basically climbed winding stairs through vines and trees until we were ready to drop. The view was totally worth it, though! Then we wandered off and went to a monastery, where the tea was waaaaay too expensive.
After that we decided that since we'd barely eaten all day and had lost the rest of our group (at that point it was just me, Jen and one other guy from our group), we'd just go ahead and climb another mountain! Honestly, I don't know who makes decisions in our group, but we should fire them (it was probably me). So we went and climbed about six trillion stairs to a little temple at the top of a mountain. It was a little out of the way - the English signs stopped, so we knew we were out of tourist-land - but really cool. The view, once again, was totally worth it.
But it was a lot of stairs. Seriously a lot. Like possibly a human rights violation, or an ancient form of torture. For any Skyrim players reading this, we basically climbed to the Throat of the World today, and let me tell you I am nowhere near as in-shape as the dovahkiin. I really think I've gotten more exercise on this trip alone than in the rest of my life. I'm losing weight and everything. My feet might fall off, too (that would definitely contribute to the weight loss) (my jokes aren't as funny as Jen's, I know).
Okay, okay, I'll finish off before this becomes a novel. We ate Chinese fast food, which is not the same as Chinese food, somehow, and then went home. And now I'm here, writing this post. There. Updated.
Also green tea ice cream is the best thing ever, but you have to be careful with the packaging. Just because it's in a green container doesn't mean it's green tea-flavoured. Vanilla is really depressing when you're expecting green tea.
On that note, I'm gonna go play cards. See ya.
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