Shaoxing and More

(Max)

Well, we just enjoyed our last week at Hangzhou High School. Our last weekend was a fun one; it was spent going to Shaoxing on Saturday and biking on Sunday. We were lucky enough to have an entire weekend of sunny 75 degree weather.

Rose, one of the English teachers who came to DS several years ago, joined us on our day trip to Shaoxing. It was about an hour and a half to get to Shaoxing, but an incredibly awful three hours back due to horrible traffic. While in Shaoxing, a traditional“town” of about five million that resembles Venice in its canal system, we spent a very pretty sunny day walking along the water and over several hundred-year-old bridges. The counterpart to Hangzhou’s West Lake is actually found in Shaoxing and, perhaps logically, is called East Lake. Although East Lake is smaller in size, I found it to be as beautiful and much more peaceful than West Lake. We took a boat ride around the lake on a small three-person canoe that was powered by the boatman rowing with his feet. He took us through impressive caves encircling the lake that rose four stories above us; once docked, we made our way back to the van and drove home for a long, traffic filled three hours. Dareus and I, as our host families live so close to each other, made plans to bike together the next day.

Sunday morning was nice; it was the first morning in several weeks that I had the privilege of staying in bed until noon. After waking up, my brother and I grabbed lunch at a western café down the street. I had the joy of watching SunKai (my host brother) experience his first T-bone steak, which he enjoyed greatly. Later that day my host brother and I joined Dareus, his host brother, and two other classmates to go for a bike ride. We biked down to and around West Lake for several hours, stopping on occasion to sit, relax, and enjoy the scenery. As it was a sunny Sunday, though, the number of people on the sidewalk and street was ridiculous. I would have hated to be in the traffic on the road. We often had to dismount our bikes and walk through the massive crowds for risk of running some poor person over. We decided to meet back at the school if we got separated, which we inevitably did, so after several hours we found ourselves back at the school and ready to go home.

Sunday night I had my last dinner with my host family. They went all out, buying a farewell cake and making an assortment of food that they knew I enjoyed like pork bao and dumplings. We exchanged gifts (SunKai’s younger brother really enjoyed his presents), and I went to bed for the last time in Hangzhou. I’m looking forward to coming home, but I’m definitely going to miss lots of the people in Hangzhou. My host family, in particular, has been great, and very kind and generous to me. 

Now, on to Beijing for the last few days of our trip.