A Day in Houhai and a Fleeting Vacation

Today was actually quite nice despite the blazing heat and humidity.

I woke up at 9 am to go with Tammy to get her picture taken again for the school purposes. On the way back we had some "Chinese Burritos". Soo good. I forget what they are called but they were pretty much like wraps: fried chicken strips, lettuce (which supposedly got people sick because it wasn't "cleaned", but I still ate it), hoisin sauce, and an egg spread INSIDE the tortilla thing. It was really good.

However, I was still unsatisfied. After finishing that business, we hung out in the rooms for a little and went on the internet. Oh man! having it in the room is so much more convenient than having to go down to the second floor to access the crappy wireless. But...this way I will be on the computer more. It's ok, I already have an established group of good friends.

Anyway, after hanging out for a bit, Tammy had the idea of going to get bowls since we didn't have anything to eat our ramen out of last night.

* I forgot to mention how I orchestrated a huge group outing yesterday even though I was planning on initially only going with 12 people. My idea was to go to Hot Pot for dinner, which was excellent (they gave us free popsicles, beer, booze, and mandarin oranges in a nice bag). After Hot Pot, many of us would be headed over to Propaganda (a club that everyone, including my sister, seems to rave about). We were going to go with 12, but it turns out that we invited someone else (because we felt bad and couldn't say NO, right?). She invited HELLA people. Whatever, it was still fun. A bunch of the people we went with got too drunk and had too much to drink and started talking to the locals. The downfall of the place was that I was pretty much inhaling 2nd hand smoke the entire time I was there. I guess that's what we get for going to a small club full of foreigners (probably chain-smoking Europeans) and Chinese people. We left, got back and looked for a late night (230 am) place to eat. We went to one and they wanted to charge us a sitting fee, so we went to the only other one nearby and they made jiao zi for us. It was really good. We went home and then to sleep. What a night

Anyway, back to what I was saying. So we went to Wu Mart, taking taxis both ways because it was hot. Tammy and I got a bunch of things. First, thing to wash clothes and dry them (by hand). Next, things to eat ramen and clean the bowls out with. Finally, I just got some extras that I needed, including gum and a power extender. It was a really good deal. After, we got a taxi to go to a jiao zi place close to school. We cut it short getting to the bus.

So we got back just in time for our Houhai trip with the entire EAP. We got on a bus and headed over. We rode these "rickshaws" around, which were bikes with carts on the back. It was really fun and the guy we had as a driver was very cool. We arrived at various places of interest under our guide named Jackie Chan. We went to a tea room and learned about different types of tea and about these cool cups that changed color and image whenever they contained hot tea water inside. Afterwards, we followed Jackie to an old man's home (one of the residents of an old hutong). A hutong is a small alley way (9 meters in length, not to be confused with a street...). Anyway he was a painter and he sold his stuff for about 3000 kuai worth to our group. I bought one even though I felt like he was ripping us off because I saw a painting that I thought my mom would like. Anyway, we later learned that all the groups met these native hutong livers and they were ALL painters. I hope these paintings were not just copies or something, I like to think its authentic. Well, they jacked us but I guess for a good cause and reason. The painting I got was nice though.

After getting ripped off, we went back onto the rickshaws and went to Houhai Lake and went around the shops. They were really upscale looking because it is a place where a lot of tourists and rich businessmen go. We went to dinner there after waiting a long time around a Xi Ba Ke (Starbucks in China). The food was good, but again I thought the best dish was the qing zheng yu (a special fish dish) and the man tao (a desert with condensed milk dip). It was really good. Afterwards we went onto a boat to ride around the lake and listened to the music of a Chinese ancient instrument player. She was really good and she played songs we knew like Jay Chou and Tong Hua. She seemed to like us too even though she didn't talk much. She made the boat ride more enjoyable because she was friendly. Otherwise it was just a short, slow ride around a dirty lake (that people even swim in, gross).

After the boat rides we were waiting for the buses and thought up games to pass the time. Veronica's game boom-chicka-boomboom-boomboom helped out a lot. Then we played a watermelon game, an animal game and we were the center of attention for the locals.

We arrived home at around 6, very sticky and full. It was fun.

Tomorrow we start school, I hope we wake up in time, but I'm sure we will. Here goes nothing.