Zhejiang | isn't it a beautiful day

We’ve been in China for a month! Really!?! Time has gone so unbelievably slow and somehow it has also flown by. Nich and I are certainly feeling settled in. We’ve both gotten sick and survived! :o) We have found a collection of delicious restaurants and marked our “go to” items. We’ve discovered and figured out the bus near our school (we’re really not in the city, so transportation with wheels is a must). We’ve found a few chaoshi超市 (grocery stores) in walking distance. We’ve also purchased two lovely semi-road bikes. They were a great deal thanks to my haggling capabilities, only 500 yuan each ($80), but originally 780 yuan each. Now we can bike into town, which is only a 15-20 minute ride. We also found a basketball, so now we’ll be getting really fit and athletic. And that about sums up the gains in the last couple weeks. It’s all sounds pretty normal and not so exciting, but you have to always keep in mind that nothing is boring and simple in China. There is always something to make the process exciting, possibly frustrating, and always quite adventurous.

For example, Nich and I have figured out a number of “go to” items at a few restaurants, but this was after we accidently order “special chicken,” which happened to be a heaping pile of chicken gizzards with lajiao 辣椒(chilies). This was also after we ordered a dish that looked like a big bowl of soup filled with xiaobaicai 小白菜(bok choy), but in fact it was filled with sprouts (which were fantastic), cow liver, and cow intestines (which were not fantastic). Everything is an adventure. Even though, I can read and speak a fair amount of Chinese, ordering food is always an adventure because menus are not always so straightforward (nor are they in the U.S., because what is a “sloppy Joe” exactly). Menus here are the same way, we’ve order tebiejirou 特别鸡肉(special chicken), but what should be expect from that? Gizzards, apparently. Anyway, life in China is exciting, which sometimes translates to hard and demanding of your time, patience, and sanity, but overall exciting.

We’ve been here just over a month and we knew we had to celebrate. We decided to go to Hangzhou over the October holiday (which is 7 days in the beginning of October that everyone gets off for travel, family time, relaxation, etc). It was insane; there were people everywhere, busier than New York, busier than Disneyland on a holiday! It was busy! We thought that would our little one month celebration in China, but no China planned another celebration to mark the actual day. Our one-month anniversary was marked by a typhoon headed right towards our provenience. Nich and I got back to our apartment in Yueqing with plenty of time to stalk up on food and water. We were certainly over prepared, but being that we’re from Arizona, a place without much extreme weather or rain, we over prepared. The storm seemed like it was going to be quite awful, since parents came to pick up their kids and take them home, teachers left their apartments to stay in the city with family, and our campus was empty. Most all of the storm happened in the middle of the night, featuring wind blowing at 70 mph or so and lots of rain. Our building howled as the wind past through the halls and through windows left open in empty apartment, which also meant water leaked out of their room because it was being mildly flooded. In the middle of the night we lost power, but it was back on by 10am. Although, our elevator remained off for the next two days, which is a small inconvenience since we are on the 10^th floor. The typhoon in all honestly was not too bad, but I also hope it’s not our 2^nd month anniversary present either.

it’s beautiful in Yandang 雁荡 and filled with surprises

The water was beautiful!

Between these two mountains is a nine story temple.

We had a nice long break for the Mid-Autumn Festival so we decided to go explore Zhejiang providence a bit. We decided to go to Yandang Mountain 雁荡山 for a couple days for a little hiking and sight seeing. The day before we left for Yandang we arranged a taxi driver to take us to the bus station in the morning, but thirty minutes before the taxi was supposed to pick us up he called and told us that he wouldn’t be able to give us a ride.

Flexibility and patience is one thing you must have in China, otherwise little things like your taxi driver deciding not to pick you up in the morning might annoy you. Nich and I figured we would ask the security guard at the front gate to call to call a taxi for us, but as were waiting at the gate a high school teacher offered to give us a ride to the bus stop. He was already on his way into town so he said he didn’t mind giving us a ride. He asked where were headed and what we planned to do. We told him we were off to Yandang and this interested him very much because he was from Yandang.
He was concerned that we were going there without a tour guide, but I told him that we’d be fine. When we got to the bus stop he insisted on calling a student of his that lived in Yandang to help us out. The student offered us a room at her family’s hotel and a ride from the bus station. That offer was one of the kindest things I think anyone could think of from a stranger. Nich and I were really happy; this helped us out so much, now we didn’t have to find a hotel that would take in foreigners or a ride to the mountain.

An hour later we made it to Yandang. The city was a small and beautiful. The air was fresh and there was a light breeze that made one feel energized. When we got off the buss abruptly greeted by many hotel owners and drivers that wanted to take us around, we found our host very quickly, Bellamy. She pointed to her father sitting in a miniature minivan he eagerly waved at us.Bellamy told the other guides that we were here to see her and her family, as if they all knew each other (which I am pretty sure they did). Arriving there truly felt like we had made it to a place seemingly untouched by foreign tourists.

We were the foreign tourists.

Bellamy and her dad took us to their home to put our bags down and then off to see Yandang Mountain, but before we went there, we went to see Bellamy’s mother who works at the park. She too seemed excited to meet us and excited that Bellamy would get a couple days of English practice in with the two American teachers from school. Because Bellamy’s mom worked for the park Nich and I got into the parks for free.

The park was absolutely amazing. I think that Nich and I could have easily walked around for hours.

There were arrows pointing everywhere, to the right there was a cave, a hike to a temple, a hike to small lake, and so, but then to the left there were just as many options to explore. The mountains were made up of igneous rocks and they were amazing, it was almost as if they had been carved years ago and then left to weather. Bellamy was eager to point out all the shapes and pictures found in them. The park opens twice a day, once for the daytime to walk and hike and then once for a night showing, where people can see the shapes the mountains make (it’s much easier to see the shapes at night). I would very much like to offer some wonderfully-wordy description of what Yandang Mountain was like, but I am afraid that words really couldn’t describe the beauty and feel of the place. Nich and I did take pictures though, so that’ll have to do.

After walking around the park for a bit, Bellamy decided that she was hungry and it was time for lunch. One thing Nich and I have yet to adapt to is the time for eating and one thing I don’t think we will every get used to is the amount per meal. Bellamy and her family treated Nich and I to lunch, which consisted of taking us to a restaurant and asking what foods we like. “Do you like bok choy? Shrimp? Potatoes? Rice?

Noodles? Yams? Beef? Mushrooms?” They asked and whatever we said yes to was ordered and ended up arriving at our table, a dish per ingredient. Nich and I were literally stuffed and possibly being killed with kindness. We would be killed with truly delicious kindness. The cause of death was going to be overeating. When lunch was finished, Bellamy’s dad suggested that we take a rest and then he would take us to the other park (all part of Yandang Mountain). After that, he said he would make us dinner. Nich and I couldn’t even hear anything about food, because we were stuffed.

The second park was just as pretty, a bit smaller, but it featured something I think one will probably only see in China. Next to one of the tall mountains there was a cement box that stood beside it, cement beams came out from the sides and connected to the mountain along the way up. The structure was very peculiar looking and baffled Nich and I. Bellamy asked us, “Would you like to go up?” Yes, China built a massive elevator beside one of these beautiful mountains so that people can go to the top and then hike around. We had to try it out. There were two options Floor 1 or Floor 2. This made me giggle a bit. There were no other stops in between so it would be 2, but I found it too funny that the top of a mountain would be called Floor 2.

When we got to the top, Nich and I were a bit shocked to see that in order to get on the mountain you have to get off the elevator and on to the steel floor that sticks out from the side of the mountain. We weren’t quite ready for so much excitement, but we survived and I think it was pretty safe (I’d do it again). The view from the top was amazing. We didn’t have time to hike around the top, but being up there made me realize that coming back to Yandang mountain was something that Nich and I would be doing on a weekend trip or with family.

Again, the mountains and scenery were amazing and beautiful. The air was fresh. The people were all so kind and vibrant. Nich and I fell in love with the place immediately and perhaps you will fall into like with these pictures.