Hang on to your hair, this one is gonna fly...
This last weekend the gang known as FoC (Friends of China) gathered together in Shaoxing for the fourth annual Tent Sleeping Festival. Also, TSF. It's a fun renaming of the Chinese holiday known as Tomb-Sweeping Festival. Now, wait... Didn't we have that holiday already?? You are correct. I wrote about my adventures in Hangzhou for Tomb Sweeping a couple weeks ago. The holiday fluctuates based on the lunar calendar, so this year we decided to celebrate TSF over the Chinese May Holiday...comparable to USA's Labor Day.
Anywhoooooo, now that you've got the basics, here we go.... One person arrived Monday, five or so more Wednesday, and then in droves on Thursday with a few more Friday and one more Saturday. The total number of people sleeping in our small little three floor apartment hit about 50. Imagine every bed, couch, and most of the floors sprawled with people. Okay, so not all of the floor. But there were two good size balconies and all of third floor that was designated sleeping space. As well as a few brave souls that slept on the roof one or two nights. I slept up there one night and it was fun.
The weather cooperated so we had 80s all three days. And the only thing to do when it's that gorgeous is to get your butt outside! And that we did. Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning were filled with Ultimate Frisbee and sunshine. I'm sore to prove it, and I love it. I love Ultimate so much, and being able to play twice was just awesome.
Each of the three cities in Zhejiang province took a meal. Hangzhou had Friday breakfast, Shaoxing on Friday dinner, and Shanghai on Saturday breakfast. All of it was good. We made shredded chicken over rice with corn, carrots, and mashed potatoes. All simple enough to make.... until you remember that we had about 50 people to feed. =O I know.. Crazy! But we did it and it went over real well.
Some other awesome things that happened over the weekend was the chance for the men and women to have devotional breakout sessions, and one giant worsh!p service. We played some games; cribbage, 7 wonders, fairy tale, animal game, and settlers. We watched a movie one morning while every one was slowly gaining consciousness. There was KTV (extreme karaoke) and exploring main town Shaoxing. (Everyone stayed at Zion about 40 minutes from downtown.)
OH! I almost forgot... how could I forget... Good grief. We had an awards ceremony! Yes, that's right the official Tent Sleeping Festival Tenties. Our coordinator Nate comes up with the Tentie awards, and we all got a certificate, and a chinese coin necklace as our Tentie. Some of the fun ones were Marathoner of the Year, Biggest Smile of the Year, Accident Prone of the Year, Fungus of the Year (referring to a cat), Skype endurance of the Year (for a girlfriend of FoC member visiting from America), and a whole bunch of others that apply to our group. I was awarded 'Selfie of the Year' .... Never saw it coming right??? Ha. It was a ton of fun.
All in all it was just an awesome, spectacular, wonderful weekend. Much needed for myself, and great to see everyone. It really boosted the spirit, and invigorated the soul. Plus, it starts the beginning of a very busy two months. The next month of weekends are booked solid, and then I go on my last three weeks of adventuring before coming to the States to adventure for a bit. =)
Until next time.
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