Hangzhou, China

Houston has about 4 million people...and most people have heard of it. This weekend I took a trip to what I pictures as a sleepy little Chinese village, Hangzhou. Turns out this "little" town has 7 million people and growing!! China is so incredible in this way...there are people everywhere. You can be in the middle of the countryside and there will be a cluster of 50 matching buildings, 30 stories high...and they are apartments! Where do these people work?? Where do they buy groceries?? Do they ever leave their little area??

Here's a map of my travels so far...

Anyway...on to the day in Hangzhou. We met in the hotel at 8am and had a 3 hour drive in front of us. There were just 4 other people on the tour. A couple from NYC that are Hungarian and Chinese. A lady on business from the Phillipines. And another guy here for work, from the UK. We were a pretty diverse little group. :) The drive only ended up taking about 2 hours...and it was very pretty and interesting to gaze out the window.

We arrived in the town and went straight to the lake. There, we had a traditional boat waiting for us. We cruised around the lake. The view was gorgeous...but there was still alot of the trademark smog that you find throughout the areas of China...the places I've been at least. There was a nice pagoda on the hill and it was pretty neat that you can see the city on one shore and the gardens on the other. There were also these 3 pillars in the lake that the guide showed us are the photo on the back of the 1 RMB bill!

One thing I did not escape on this trip is the Houston heat...man, this place is HOT! I was a sweaty mess my the time we got off the boat! Then it was time to walk around the gardens. They were beautiful, with lots of koi ponds, flowers, pretty walkways and buildings. Here are a few pics all around the gardens. We even saw a few people drawing the nice landscape. I also had a little snack to cool down that was orange flavored ice cubes...they were super sweet...but so tasty!

From here, we went to lunch at a hotel situated right in the park. The food was delicious and pretty traditional. The flavors were some of the best I've had in China. When I went to the "ladie's room", that's how it was spelled on the door :), I saw this photo that reminded me of a picture my friend's grandma painted...that kinda looked like human eyes on a cat body. Always creeped my mom out just a tad!

After lunch, we jumped back in the van and went over to the "Buddah Temple". I've been to a few temples in Taiwan and China...but this one was the most grand. The statues inside were huge and beautifully maintained. The guide explained that you can tell that Buddahs, like people, are happy when they eat alot and have big tummies...seems like a pretty good philosophy. :)

We heard stories of the Buddah, its protectors, the monks and one monk in particular that lived at this temple. He is shown here...and you can see how huge the copper Buddah behind him is...the man in front is larger than life sized.

While we were at the temple, we also saw ironically, a praying mantis. I had never seen one in person and he was so incredible. This smart little bugger would follow our finger anywhere we pointed! Our group took him off this pole and put him back on the bushes so he could have a little snack...and blend in perfectly!

We then got to witness a ceremony with a family praying for their ancestors. The monks were chanting and what appeared to be 3 brothers were praying together. It was very sweet.

Our last stop of the day was at a traditional tea house in the Mei jia wu village...it was actually an entire little tea village. Most of the people in this town are farmers and have tiny tea houses above their homes. We learned how to tell if tea is high or low quality and how to drink it politely with our pinkies out. Our teacher was so adorable...she had learned many English cliches and made all of us laugh! "A cup of green tea a day keeps the doctor away." Toward the end, it became a bit of an infomercial...you buy one mommy sized jar and get 2 babies...all for one low price! Haha...but she was cute enough to pull it off and suck you right in!

This was a neat tea blossom. The wrap the leaves up in elaborate patterns and they "bloom" when they hit the hot water.

We then shopped a little in the tea house store. I got a great watercolor of the lake..love getting pics of places I've been. And also got a book on Buddhism in China...it had pics of some of the temples and a little history. Seemed interesting. :) The best item I didn't pick up was the Waxi Meatbone...mmm....doesn't that sound delicious!

We then boarded the bus. I chatted with the guy from the UK for a while about our travels, then popped in my headphones and relaxed and stared out the window while listening to John Mayer's acoustic stuff...ahhh, so relaxing. We even had a little bit of a blue sky to enjoy on the way home!

I had great plans of walking Nanjing Road that night and doing a little shopping, but I was exhausted and decided to just stay in and have my dinner come to me! Yea for room service!

goooooooooooooooooooal!!!!

We bought our tickets for the Olympic soccer match from a guy I found on an expat website. We were hoping Lee was a stand up guy and not selling some of the many counterfeit tickets we had heard about. With tickets in hand, RC and I walked to the subway and took the train out to the "Shanghai Indoor Stadium". When we emerged from the station, there were a ton of police men everywhere. They were verifying you had tickets to even cross the street to get to the stadium. There was even a pup there to sniff for bombs. Other people were taking pics, so I thought, why not!? :)

We followed the crowd and got into line. It was so incredible hot! We were both totally sweating like crazy and in a big, packed crowd. It was pretty funny though, even the officer's were a little amazed by the event...one was even taking pics of the crowd.

After about 15 minutes, they started moving us in the opposite direction of the stadium, toward the street. We finally figured out, they were trying to point us to the main entrance to go through security faster. We were a little skeptical, but it worked and we were all piling into the stadium pretty quickly. And the best part was, our tickets were legit!

The crowd was mostly Chinese...lots with jerseys on for both the Argentina and Netherlands teams. There were also a few more Americans and Europeans than we had seen in Shanghai throughout the trip...maybe 5% of the crowd. We walked a little around the stadium, stopped to see the souvenirs and grabbed a much needed water.

When we walked up the ramp to our seats, we showed the tickets to the attendant and he started shuffling through a stack of tickets in his hand. He then handed us "new" tickets and told us these would be much better since ours would be right behind the tv camera...so we moved down to the bottom deck...sweet!!

The opening anthems started as soon as we sat down. The air was so thick you could barely see the other side of the 80,000 person stadium. It was also a little funny that it was totally open air and named "The Shanghai Indoor Stadium"...hmm. The cool part of it being outside, was you could see the bright full moon over the crowd.

There were a few scattered orange and blue & white striped shirts in the stands and a couple of little flags flying. Then the game started! I really enjoyed it! I was pretty shocked...since I'm not a huge sports fan. There is a ton of action, incredible athleticism and the crowd gets so into it! Even in China! Also, learned that "the wave" is totally universal. I think there was a constant wave the entire game!! If you look really closely, you can see it's below the scoreboard in this pic.

Argentina was first to score. Here are the guys celebrating! GOOOOOOAL! (They didn't really say that over the speaker, it was just in my head).

The Netherlands then scored and we had a tie game at the end of the second half. I don't really know enough about the game to give any play by plays...but I really did love it!

In overtime, Argentina kicked another goal and won the semifinal round! They were last Olympic's gold medalists...so they are quite a team! It was so fun to watch and a really competitive match. Can't wait to see the Dynamos in Houston now ad maybe even find my way to another world event like the World Cup. Can't even imagine how much fun it would have been if the fans were really into the teams!!!

There were 2 groups that were pretty enthusiastic and chanted here and there. This guy was pulling for Argentina...

And these totally drunk dudes I'm assuming were for The Netherlands with their orange t-shirts. They would count down then get the crowd to cheer...then raise the fabric on their tiger t-shirts to show the inside of the mouth when the tiger "roared"!

We took the subway back...check out the sweaty crowd!!!

It was a beautiful night (the only one since I've been in Shanghai with no rain!) and had a ton of fun being part of a such a cool event!!!

lots of walking and shopping around Shanghai

This morning was my one day to sleep in...and it was great to get caught up on all the jet lag and actually be ready to tackle the day with my eyes open.

We met in the lobby for our day of shopping all over town. We walked over to "The Tourist Tunnel" to make our way to the Pu dong side of the city. This thing is hilarious! It's like a Disney World ride if they just had a huge movie flop and were told to use 1% of their original budget. But, the funny thing is, there is always a line. You hop into a little pod and ride through lots of twinkle lights, blow up people (you know like you see on top of gas stations) and listen to the techno music with creepy voice overs as you enter each section. The man tells you which section you're in with this dramatic voice..."Heaven, Hell", "Melting Magma" and "Shooting Stars" are a few awesome examples!

Once we popped up on the other side, we took a little break in the train station while RC picked out a stone to carve a photo of his family on...while we waited I saw this great Chinglish sign...

We stopped to take a few pics in front of The Pearl too.

And here's the shopping crew...RC, Teresa, John, Jeff, Ron and me. Six people in a self portrait? Piece of cake, people!

We then took the train to the first market. This one has clothing, purses, watches, video games, etc... There are a couple of schools of thoughts in the markets. You either take a price you're happy enough with or you spend the day bantering and haggling (over a couple of bucks). The majority rules when you're travelling as a pack...so the negotiators won. First, we hit up a place with jackets...North Face, Columbia, Spyder, etc. The guys wanted rain jackets and I was thinking about getting one for the soccer game that night. Just knew I wouldn't use it again and didn't know if I wanted to spend the money. So, a couple of the guys talked and talked with the sales guy...and no deal. He wouldn't come down low enough, so we walked on. You know you have a pretty sweet deal if they don't come chasing you...especially for as many as we were getting. We walked on to a few other shops and figured out...the first place was as good as it gets. The funny part was, when we returned, with sagging faces, he pulled out the bag with all the jackets. He hadn't even put them up, b/c he knew we'd be back! That says we already had a great deal!! :)

I decided not to get the jacket and just risk it...then Ron came up with a brilliant idea...Jeff was getting one for his wife...how about I lease it from him? Perfect...so I got a jacket for the evening and didn't have to find a place to store it once I came home...so smart! :)

We wrapped up the shopping there and headed to the famous DVD place. We went into this little alley through a turn style and there was the little shop. The lady there is great...and will tell you if the movie you picked up is good or not. Movies and TV...this was my kind of place to splurge!!! I found 30 Rock, Weeds, The L-word and my all time favorite Arrested Development! I couldn't resist getting the series with all the info translated into Chinese on the box...and I've loaned mine out a bunch, so I've misplaces a few of the disks. I also snagged a some new movies...so it was a total jackpot! :)

Jeff took this pic of Ron and me in the Times Square area (yeah, Shanghai has two areas called Times Square...take that NYC)...my peace sign is a little hostile!!! He wouldn't take the pic until I gave the signature Japanese tourist peace sign...so it looks a little more like the finger!

From there, we walked through the drizzling rain to the Blue Frog restaurant. The food was good and familiar. The fries were awesome!! My sandwich, on the menu, said it had egg mayo on it. I laughed, thinking they just meant mayo since it's made from eggs. To my surprise, they DID include the egg!! It was like a Turkey sandwich with egg salad on top. It was pretty good, but so rich!

My feet were a little achy and I have a few less Yuan in my pimp roll...but so excited about my purchases and off to the Olympic soccer game tonight!!!