Sunshine and Two Dinners

Allison

Monday, March 16th

I got very sad this morning as I was riding to work, it really hit me that this was one of our last days in Hangzhou. I am looking forwaard to returning home, to see my family and friends, and students, but I am very sad that we have to leave Hangzhou and all of our friends here. 

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Our last calligraphy class..our teacher Yang Laoshi is wonderful! One of my favorite people (although I have many) here in Hangzhou, my friend Xu Dao, arrived to help out and provide his gentle encouragement. He is a 70 year old retired English teacher here at Hanggao.   He is a very talented calligrapher. He is always smiling!! He likes to play us songs on his cell phone.

Today, our assignment was to show off everything we had learned and create our Chinese calligraphy masterpieces!! We were each assigned four different characters to master and then had to paint them on some very nice paper. After class, we took a group photo with Yang Laoshii. Xu Dao was our photographer..he was having a little trouble figuriing the camera out and exclaimed "I am from the countryside!!" It was very funny.

Derek or Xu Chang arrived for Chinese class (it is his birthday!). Our assignment today was to write our speeches for the banquet on Wednesday night. All four of us have to give a speech in Chinese..yikes. The weather was so beautiful that we decided to sit outside to write when we were done..Derek and Bruce went to work translating away. 

Lunch and then Alex and I went to English corner. Li and Mark went to the astronomy club.

We met back at the English office and then Obama Lama went off with Helen to pick up our dresses and suits for the farewell banquet. Helen has been so kind to us during our stay here in Hangzhou..Thank you Helen!  After, Mark, Li, Helen, and I went to make some final purchases at the silk market. 

Somehow, the four of us had double-booked ourselves for dinner. Ivan's (one of the Hanggao students who came to DS last yeear) mother and father (he is a math teacher here at Hanggao) invited us to dinner but Derek had also invited us to dinner! So we had to eat twice.  Ivan's family took us to a fantastic restauraant very close to Hefang St. ( the lovely antique shopping street in Hangzhou). Wang Huo also joined us! We enjoyed some delicious dishes including dongpo pork, french fries, and some fried noodles. Ivan is such a sweet girl and her parents are just lovely. 

Then, we took taxis to a hotel to join Derek and his wife Susan, her mother, and uncle, her brother, and his girlfriend, and Derek's best friend and his girlfriend. Derek's dinner was so much fun. His friend, I forget his name, is a magician! He performed several tricks using some elastic bands and then moved on to coins. After dinner we sang Happy Birthday in English and Chinese and then ate some amazing cake!!