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)

Work = ∫Fdx

Today was my first day at work! I am working in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China at a company called Lantian Environmental Engineering Co., Ltd. (Lantian (蓝天) literally translates to "blue sky") I am on the boiler design team, and I luckily get my own office that no one is currently using right now. It's pretty nice; I got the internet working with the help of an IT guy, and I get a nice view, my own desk, and phone. For the first week they gave me a bunch of pdf files to read about a Biomass Power Plant that they are planning to build in the Philippines. It's pretty interesting; they plan to use wood, cane, and coconut residues. But the specifications itself is a 120 page report. Should be an interesting week =).

My Office:
View Outside my Window:

Food

So I haven't posted in awhile, so I thought I'd post some pictures and descriptions about the food in China. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I felt weird taking pictures of food at fancy restaurants with people around. Hopefully you'll get the idea. Ordering food in China is vastly different than in the US. In China you order a ton of different dishes that everyone eats. It's usually placed in the center on a revolving disk so everyone can get to it. To start you eat cold dishes as sort of appetizers and then you eat the warm dishes which are kind of like the main course. If you want rice, that comes at the end and dessert is usually some small pastry type items and fruit. The food is extremely diverse and also very fresh. Also the same thing can be cooked so many different ways with different flavors. It'd be awesome if they had anything close to the food here in China in the US.

Fancy Dinnerware:
Fancy Dinner Room: (You can see all the food in the middle, and we had our own room and servers)
Chickens!
Chicken Soup! (See previous for freshness)
Fresh Seafood: (You picked what you wanted, and then they would make it for you)
Lots of Choices:

Lingyin Temple

We just got back after a morning/afternoon at Lingyin Temple. I've been here every time I've come back to China, and it's the biggest Buddhist Temple in all of China. And they keep adding more and more parts to it. The first few times I came I participated in praying to the Buddhist gods, but being a Christian now I just walked around and watched. It's an extremely interesting culture nonetheless. People take incense and burn them as part of a ritual to pray to the gods, and they also kneel in front of the large statues and ask for various prayers: health, wealth, good fortune, etc. Afterward we had lunch and rode the bus back home.

Lingyin Temple:
This is where they burn the incense:
They throw away the incense into this large cauldron:
Various Buddha Statues:

Group Photo!: (My aunt and uncle are on either side of my mom, dad, and me)

Beijing: Day Three

Today we visited the Olympic stadiums that were used in the 2008 Olympics.  The only one that we could enter was the Bird's Nest, which hosted the track and field events.  Afterward we took a small tour around the area.  The most interesting thing was this building with a bunch of apartments in it.  Apparently the rooms are 7 万元 (70,000 yuan or about $10,000) per square meter, and they're available only for rent.  After the tour, it was the end of our trip, and we were driven to the airport.  This whole trip we were extremely spoiled.  My dad's old classmate in Beijing is a, let's say, VIP, and he had his secretary take care of us the whole time.  He drove us around to the different locations and took us out to eat as well.  That's also how we were able to stay at such a nice hotel.  It definitely was a good time, and I'm looking forward to going back in the future.  He even offered to give me a car next time I come so I can drive around myself =p.

I'm back in Hangzhou now for pretty much the rest of my time in China until August 5th.  I will start work by the start of June, and my parents are leaving either the 27th or the 28th of May.  I'll still continue to post updates letting you know what I'm up to in Hangzhou.

The Bird's Nest:

Inside:

TV Tower:

The Water Cube:

The Gymnasium: