June 6th, 7th and 8th

Despite it being beautiful weather on the 6^th we ended up spending a lot of the morning just puttering and recuperating from the field trip. In the afternoon the Chinese Grad students had something organized for the American students and Heidi and I tagged along. The first challenge was getting there. The plan was to take meet at the main gate and take a city bus. But 29 American students, 10 Chinese students and a us didn’t all fit. Rather than wait for the next bus we opted to bike over. Picture 10 big guys on bikes that are too small for them and only have one gear, biking all out through the streets of Hangzhou. I’m sure we made quite the site!

The place was at a gorgeous location. They had large tables setup outside and they had Chinese games setup and also gave a lesson on how to make dumplings. While the dumplings were cooking we went across the road to a park where the students played Frisbee, something called Ninja, showed off their talents and basically did things 20 year olds do. Poor Heidi was cringing and picturing trips to the E.R. when the Nun chucks came out but only minor injuries were suffered.

Dinner was great but way too much food. The students started getting worried about biking back in the dark so we decided we had better head back to campus. I don’t know how to describe the ride back. It felt a little chaotic. Traffic was worse, for some reason people want to peddle full speed and at one point we lost half the group. Fortunately both halves had a Chinese grad student with them so we all made it back to campus safe and sound. It was funny, you think the students are just focused on biking and then all of a sudden they all stop to take a photo from a bridge. Once back on campus the students headed off to Karaoke and Heidi and I went back to our apartment.

Sunday morning we met Tang Yuan (the grad student who helped Heidi back in 2011) and headed up the 700 stairs. Despite the cooler temperature it was still humid and we were sweating in no time. You can also see the haze in the photos (which I have been trying to upload for the last 5 hours). We walked along the ridge for a bit and then took the path down through the botanical gardens. All paths lead to food and eventually we found ourselves at a Dumpling restaurant enjoying a well-deserved treat.  In the photos you’ll see some work being done on a wall, this is the wall that surrounds the campus, apparently they are making the wall higher because at night people are jumping over the wall. Fortunately for us, during the day, there is a side gate that is open and we were able to walk through instead of going all the way around to the front gate. We made it back to campus just as the rain started. It’s been raining pretty steady since then and we haven’t done much aside from a few errands, lots of eating and Heidi has been working. As for me, I did manage to get our trip to Xi’an all booked which is not an easy task!