a tomb sweeping we will go...

This last weekend was a national holiday, Tomb Sweeping festival. Don't ask, I don't really know. I've asked my two best Chinese friends, and they could only tell me that it was to honor the dead/ancestors.

But for me, and the rest of the country, it meant Monday off of school. (dance it out!) I went to Hangzhou with a few team members and two Chinese friends. We left on Friday afternoon, and upon arrival in HZ we promptly napped. Haha... It was a long week. That evening we went to two western restaurants, one for appetizers and one for dinner. Both excellent choices. Then, on Saturday morning we set off for the silk market. This is a whole street, and many of the side streets dedicated to silk, and products made of silk. Crazy! And so much to choose from! I was a little overwhelmed at first. But then I spotted a box of 10kuai scarves....SCORE!! (that's about $1.40) So, I bought two. One of them I am wearing now, and have been all weekend. The other might be for my mother.... maybe. =) I looked at lots of shops, considered many a scarf, debated a skirt or two, and finally made it to the end. I ended up leaving silk market with the four scarves, the two mentioned before, and one for each of my grandmothers. And then at the very end our group wandered into one last shop and I bought two lovely embroidered scenes. Very nice, and I love them. I'm all about art these days.

After the silk market we jumped across the street to an 'everything market'.... which is just as it sounds, it has everything in it. Nate was on a mission to find a belt, and the rest of us were just tagging along. But I ended up buy two pairs of boy shorts underwear. They are actually boy underwear, but they looked comfy and I wanted to try em. By the way, they are comfy and only cost me 20kuai or $3 for the two of them.

Following the everything market, we headed to pedestrian street, or 'huh-fung-lu' to see the little shops there. This road is like an American flea market mashed with fair ground food and has the occasional historical statue. The real downside was the amount of people because it was a holiday. It was a struggle to keep our group of 7 together. There was room to move, but traffic was crazy and it was only people! I made a purchase or two on pedestrian street. The best was a coffee mug (I know, I know, how can you have too many, right?) that I got just before we hit the crowd of the street. It's made of a rougher clay on the outside, and the inside is a smooth light blue ceramic that comes over the rim of the glass and appears to drip down the cup. It's a great mug. I also ended up buying a spiraled potato on a stick. I don't know how they do it, but this shop spiral cuts a whole potato and skewers it so its like a giant starch slinky. Then, they cook it (deep fry I think) and you can pick a flavor of seasoning. I got spicy with ketchup. It wasn't as amazing as my mind seemed to think it would be, but it was still pretty good.

By this point we've walked a ton, and taken a bus or two. But we weren't finished. Just beyond pedestrian street is the famous west lake. This lake is claimed by HZ to be the most romantic place in all of China. And it is pretty beautiful. As a bonus, Starbucks is right next to the lake where we were viewing. (I happen to like Starbucks a little more than a little :] ) After enjoying the lake, and Starbucks we grabbed dinner and hung out at the apartment. It was a very busy day with a large amount of walking.

Sunday was ch.rch, lunch, bus/subway/train/bus back to Shaoxing and hanging out at Tony/Seth's apartment for the evening. I made scrambled eggs, and breakfast potatoes. They were almost as good as the camping breakfast potatoes (I was pretty darn proud of them).

Today, Monday, we decided to hit the town of Shaoxing like we hit Hangzhou. So, we went to the market called Ta-shan, and I bought a painting of a Shaoxing canal. Now, I have art from everywhere I've been. Then after lunch Seth and I took Marie and Emma (our zhong gua ren friends /chinese friends) to look for glasses. My initial thought was 'this is China, everything is cheaper here'. Well, that lasted for a little while. Turns out glasses are cheap in China..... if you're not blind. I am blind. Because I've got such a high prescription the cost went up steeply for me. UGH!!! Finally at our third store, I was thinking I'd get some, but needed to figure out a price I could afford. And I wanted to get frames that weren't super duper cheap looking/quality. No easy task I quickly found out. Thankfully, Emma and Marie are stellar bargainers and I was able to get a new pair of regular glasses, and a pair of prescription sunglasses for 800kuai. Which was a lot for me to pay, but that's down from the 1200 original price. And when converted, it's only about $130.... so basically a steal. But it was quite the trial to get to that point. Oi! I have the regular glasses now (picture going up after I'm done typing this) and the sunglasses will be done in about a week.

And that's how we sweep tombs here in the Orient. =) It was a long, exhausting weekend, but a lot of fun, and a good break to the routine. I also spent a ton of money, but to quote my good friend, Olaf, "All good things, all good things"

Until next time.