Adventures in Hangzhou

Once again, I apologize to anyone keeping an eye out for posts from me. I haven't posted in 5 days - partly due to the fact that the internet connection in my apartment is absolute garbage, so I'm in Starbucks getting things done online for the time being :-)

Five friends and myself went to a city called Hangzhou this past Saturday. We took a couple of Chinese girls that a friend works with who were from Hangzhou and acted as our tour guides. They said the city's supposed to be well-known for its silk, umbrellas, the West Lake, and something else that I forgot. It's about 120 miles south of Shanghai, so we took the CRH (Chinese High-speed Railway) and got there in a bit over an hour. We had originally planned for it to be a weekend trip but we decided to head back to Shanghai after being homesick 8 hours into our site-seeing. It just wasn't exactly what we expected I guess. I would describe it as a smaller version of Shanghai, but with a lake next to it. Maybe we just had a not so great experience and there were things that we missed out on, but our guides didn't really have anything spectacular to show us. What we did see for the short time that we were there was definitely very cool. From the train station, we hopped onto an old wooden trolly that took us to West Lake - the main tourist attraction in the city.

It was very beautiful and we were able to see many wonderful things around the large lake. Thousands of people were there, as it seems to be everywhere you go in China :-) This dragon boat was one of the highlights for us:

Unfortunately we did not get to ride on the immaculate dragon boat, but it provided us with many minutes of great picture taking.

We once again ran into many groups of Chinese people who wanted to take pictures with us - something that Rich, Ree, and I encountered at the World Expo last week. Usually it's the teenage girls that want to take pictures, and they all throw up their peace signs and smile as big as they can with their arms around us, giggling the entire time...it makes you feel like a celebrity =)

We ended up eating lunch at Zhejiang University, my first experience as a Chinese college. It was pretty cool, not much different than your standard U.S. school. It did have one thing very few American schools have though...

<-- A giant statue of Chairman Mao Zedong!

After lunch, we were too wiped out from walking around the lake to climb any mountains or anything, so we decided to head home. Overall the trip was a lot of fun, and we definitely enjoyed Hangzhou, but I have a feeling that we missed out on some things that could have made it a lot better...no big deal though.

Once back in Shanghai, we took a rest and went out for the night. It turned out to be probably the most fun night I've had in Shanghai since I've been here, so it was good that we ended our trip a bit early. On Sunday, I went with some people from work to the last softball game of the season for a team that the brewery sponsors - The Boxing Cats. They finished the season with a win, 8-3 against Malone's, and we all hung out and drank some beers after the game. It reminded me of when I was younger and I'd ride my bike to watch my Dad play ball for Nak's. I asked if I could maybe get involved with their team and they said definitely, so I'm going to be joining them for a tournament in Songjiang (about 20 miles south of Shanghai) on July 10-11. It's wooden bats, free beer and food, 4 guaranteed games, and $1,500 USD to the winners! The team is made up of some great guys - lots of big shots in different industries around Shanghai, so they're definitely good people to know. :-) It should be an awesome time.

Later that night Ibbi, Chris, Kim, and I headed out to the 'largest indoor go-karting track in all of Asia' (as their ads proclaim) - Stampede Karting, in the northern part of Shanghai:

We had the time of our lives! It was one of the most fun things I've ever done. The karts were moving at about 50 mph and it was a giant parking garage of road course outlined in old car tires. We were drifting around corners like it we were Vin Diesel in the third Fast and Furious movie ;-) And there were barely any rules. Hit whoever you want, drive as fast as you want, crash into whatever you want, and they encouraged drinking and driving with a bar that overlooked the track. On top of all that, it was buy one get one free for a ticket to ride. What I'm getting at is that it was incredible. And, naturally, I of course dominated everyone and came in 1st place in our 'post-race standings.' The Chinese people that we were racing against had no idea what they were doing...which I have noticed correlates well to they way that they drive on the streets of Shanghai :-)