Written by Nelly
The temperature in Hangzhou has dropped overnight from 27C to 18C. The cool weather is refreshing.
National Day
Yesterday was National Day in China. Since it was a Chinese holiday there were so many people at West Lake that we decided we were not going to fight the crowd. Instead, we found a quiet tea house across the street from West Lake and just hung out and drank tea. It was a relaxing day except that we got an e-mail from our house sitters with some bad news. One of our cats, Max, has not been seen for a week. Needless to say, we are worried about Max. Our house sitters and our neighbors are doing everything they can to find Max, we are really grateful!
Singing is a national hobby
So I've noticed Chinese men love singing out loud. We'll be walking on the street, and some random guy will be walking and singing out loud. Most of the time, they are not too bad. I'm sitting at an Internet cafe now and occasionally some guy will just start singing out loud for one or two phrases.
Don't plug the toilet, ever!
I had the misfortune of plugging the toilet at our hotel room yesterday. A cranky maintenance man came up with a plunger. He started lecturing me on why I should have not throw toilet papers into the toilet! He eventually got the toilet unplugged but also made a mess in the bathroom without cleaning up. It was bad news.
Ah, another guy is singing again.
Boy there are a lot of people in Hangzhou this week
Today we decided we'll brave the crowd to go to "Linyin Temple" (Soul's retreat Temple). The temple was built in 326 AD and has some amazing grottos. As it turned out, most vacationers had the same idea as us. There were so many people at the temple and on the bus! And Jesse again is an added tourist attraction. We were resting at some pagoda, and two young men asked to take pictures with us!
Trip to the Pharmacy
So my throat has been scratchy and burning in the last few days. It had gotten worse so I decided it's time to go to the pharmacy. I asked the pharmacy lady for sore throat drugs, hoping to get something like Robitussin syrup. She gave me a package and the package says in Chinese "Golden Lotus Capsules". I asked the lady is this pain killer or what? She claimed that it will get rid of throat infections if I take 4 pills at a time, 3 times a day. She did not offer me any other alternatives. From reading the Chinese instructions, it sounded like this is actually an herbal remedy and has been tested on small mice and big rats with success. I'm taking the drugs now and hoping for the best.
We finally figure out how to cross the street!
So we notice that as soon as you make eye contact with an oncoming car, the oncoming car assume that you've seen him, and you will yield to him. So the car will actually speed up and fly right past you. We are now training ourselves to not look around, just follow the crowd and look straight ahead when crossing the street. Sure enough the cars stop for you when you pretend you don't know their existence!
Leaving Hangzhou tomorrow
We'll be leaving Hangzhou tomorrow night on a sleeper train to Beijing. I'm not sure if I'm ready to face the hectic big city yet. I heard that Beijing has been cleaned up quite a bit for the Olympics and becoming more tourist friendly (according to China's very own English news channel). We'll soon find out!
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