Day 17 (Long Bridge isn’t long)

I woke up around 8:00am this morning, a bit earlier than Marshall, because I planned on walking around for a bit before he got up.  Joe, Josh and Ben were at breakfast and they said they were planning on walking to the tea museum on the other side of the lake.  Instead of going to a pagoda with Marshall and the rest, I went with them to walk around West Lake and see the national tea museum.  The weather today was pretty calm, but pretty chilly.  My hands are kind of still numb as I'm typing this.

We set out and kind of meandered our way to the museum.  If there was a place to see, we saw it on the way there.  It's amazing how many gardens and parks there are in Chinese cities.  Today, the sights were magnified by the lake and the mountains permeated by a thin mist.  It was very picturesque pretty much everywhere around the lake.  During the first part of the walk we found many, many tombs of female revolutionaries who had been killed.  The Chinese are very proud of their heroes, and it's quite evident.  We also noted at least 5 wedding parties around the lake, taking pictures and walking around.

After walking for a while, we were nearing the museum site, and got passed by five members of the group who had taken a taxi after sleeping in.  We walked through the museum and grounds with them.  The museum is surrounded by fields of tea bushes and has quite an extensive campus.  It's dedicated to all parts of the tea process, from cultivation and leave preparation to steeping the tea and enjoying it.  Quite a bit of the museum was under decoration (construction) so it was unavailable for us to see, but in spite of that it was quite the thorough tour.  We found some more great signs that had been mistranslated.  My favorite so far has been: "Unredncible".  It was trying to say "Unrecyclable" I believe (public trash containers have companion recycling containers which are often just treated as another trash container).

For much of the path around the lake, we were able to walk in public parks.  There were only a few times when we had to cut in because of private property, because many of the business open the path (probably to increase customer numbers).  The paths are often very intricate with patterns of stones embedded in the cement and stone decorations with dragons and such on them.  A lot of walking was done today.  That's for sure.  I wouldn't trade it for anything though.

We could tell that there were a few obvious touristy places, and because we couldn't read the signs we were turned away from a few private drives.  The hand wave is probably the most recognizable way to say, "Turn around."  It was pretty effective with us.  There weren't many times or places for interactions today because everyone was being very tourist-like: trying to see everything.  I was in one picture with a chubby middle-school aged boy.  He was pretty cool.  I think his parents wanted him to talk to us, but he didn't really want to.

There aren't many specific stories from this morning and afternoon, but I was very struck by the beauty of the Hangzhou region, specifically around West Lake.  Hopefully some of that sentiment bleeds through my pictures.

Dinner was at 5:30pm today with the group.  We went to another hotel, and when we entered the five brides and grooms were right there in the lobby.  There must have been some sort of media attention for them to all be gathered in the same place.

Our dinner was splendid yet again and there was plenty of food for everyone.  We had some fish, pork, beef and plenty of vegetables; they were all done up amazingly and tastily as usual.  There was a spicy boiled salad-like dish which was fantastic.  To top it off, we bought some cakes in Amanda and Yang's honor.  They helped us out a ton on the trip and they deserve recognition for it.  One of the most amazing parts of the trip came this evening (that's a bit of an overstatement, but I thought it was cool).  The candle they put on one of the cakes looked like a folded up flower with little candles all pointed inward on the petals.  The lit it and it was like a pyrotechnics show, with sparks flying upwards igniting the candles.  They then spread outward and unfolded to look like a flower with candles lit on the petals.  It had a little speaker which played 'Happy Birthday' even though it wasn't anyone's birthday.  I think everyone should have one of those for their birthday.

We discussed some of the reflections we'd been having after dinner.  I shared what I'd been thinking about the dangers of assumptions, and how misattributions based on assumptions can be the biggest danger when forming and maintaining cross cultural relationships.  Assumptions are so easy to make, yet it seems like they should also be one of the easiest things to quit doing.  Being conscious about assumptions and misattributing behaviors is one of the best things to do when dealing with other cultures.  It's something I'm going to try and focus on in the future.

After dinner, Marshall and I went out to find the pagoda on a hill, overlooking West Lake.  We walked for a ways until we got to a causeway that I had gone over earlier in the day.  At that point it was quite dark, and neither of us really wanted to be poking around in areas we hadn't been before in the dark, so we headed back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is church, so we'll be meeting in the lobby at 9:30am.  Good night from one of the most beautiful locations in the world, Hangzhou.