Kenny Comes to Hangzhou!

Kenny Tang came today to visit Hangzhou. He's been in China for a couple of weeks now, visiting Beijing and Shanghai (for the world expo). Quite an interesting turn of events took place... First he called me at around 9:50 and said he was at the train station, so my cousin and I walked there and then called to ask where he was. He told us he was at the ticket office, but when we walked over there he wasn't there. I called him and it turns out he was at the other train station in Hangzhou, all the way to the south. My cousin happened to notice a sign that seemed to say that bus 537 would take him to our train station, and he luckily saw one and was able to get on. However when I called him later he didn't pick up. When we (my cousin, his girlfriend, and I) finally ran into him at the bus stop (about an hour later), it turns out he had dropped his phone right after that conversation and had broken the screen so he couldn't unlock his phone (it's a touch screen phone). On top of that, no one could understand his English while he tried to borrow someone's phone to call me back. It was a crazy turn of events, but thankfully we were able to find each other. We had lunch at a restaurant called "Grandma's" and proceeded to visit West Lake. It was a bit cloudy and drizzly (it rained for only a few minutes though), but it was still a pretty good day for sight-seeing.

There was this really cool looking tree:

We then decided to climb the mountain you see in the background of the first picture. We got to see the tower up close:

There were also some really cool rocks on the mountain, and people were climbing these really steep rocks. It was quite impressive.

Thankfully Kenny is big and strong:

After dinner we walked him to the bus stop so he could take the train to the south train station. It was a really crazy day, but I'm glad we were able to run into each other. Nonetheless we had a lot of fun =).

Rocky and Grace Weekend

Rocky and Grace stopped by Hangzhou this weekend as one of their last few destinations on their trip. They arrived Friday afternoon, and we first went to a shopping place by my Grandma's place to buy some stuff and walk around. Later my cousin arrived, and we went out to eat a place that had some Hangzhou specialty-type food. That night we went back to the board game place that I went to last week to place some games.

The next day we went to visit West Lake. Surprisingly there weren't that many people so we were pretty lucky. It was a long day, but we enjoyed the scenery and walking around the area.

We stopped to feed some turtles in a small pond outside the lake:
Then we found a place where we could drive our own little boat in a small enclosed area of the lake. ... and saw these cool birds:
Today we had lunch as a group and then Rocky and Grace left for Suzhou. I have the next three days off because of a Chinese holiday. No plans yet, but I'll probably just try to relax and go shopping to buy some cool stuff =).

More Fun

Today my cousin, his girlfriend, and I went around Hangzhou and did a lot of fun things. First we went to a buffet lunch at a Japanese Restaurant, although the food was mostly Chinese-style. Most of it was pretty good, but I have to say the sushi wasn't all that impressive. It wasn't your typical buffet either; it was an option you chose before you ordered so you could order as much food as you wanted from the menu. Afterward we went to climb Wu Mountain. It's not a very tall mountain, but the scenery was quite nice.

You're supposed to be able to see all the 12 symbols of the Chinese Zodiac in these rocks.. but no one could see it
Then atop the mountain we took some nice pictures:
After climbing down, which we got a little bit lost, because we got down at a different place than when we went up the mountain, we went to a McDonald's to drink some ice cold coke and rest for a bit. (It's like in the US.. but it's Chinese!)
Thinking of what to do, they decided to go to a place that you can play board games. It was pretty fun, and one of the games was this plastic tree where you rolled a die and had to take out the color stick that you rolled There were monkeys on the top, and you had to try to take a stick out without any monkeys falling. If any monkeys fell they were considered yours, and the person with the fewest number of monkeys at the end won (And I won!). It's like monkey Jenga..
Still being full from a huge lunch we decided to just eat some 羊肉串 (lamb meat on a stick) for dinner. They're delicious.
It's been a really fun weekend, but it's time for work again tomorrow. Rocky and Grace should be coming this weekend so there'll definitely be more posts coming up soon! It's going to be a lot of fun.

Sports Day

Today my cousin, 丁丁(Ding Ding), and I went out and played sports. First we had lunch at a crawfish place. It was actually quite good, albeit annoying to eat. There were three different kinds, but they all kind of tasted the same. Afterward we went to the sports building and played ping pong, pool, and went bowling. My cousin is actually pretty decent at ping pong; he beat me more times than I beat him. He also beat me in pool many times before I finally won at the end. But thankfully I am apparently really good at bowling and beat him 4 times =D. I bowled 148, 115, 162, and 138. Pretty decent =). Then we went to a Baskin Robbins and had some ice cream before going to dinner at a place that had rice noodles. I enjoyed that as well. After a fun and tiring day we are now back home. Tomorrow we are planning to go climb some mountains (by climb I mean take the stairs up), and his girlfriend is coming along as well. More on that tomorrow!

Crawfish:


Bowling: (Me)

(My Cousin)
Our Best Game: (I'm the one with 162)