Day 9 and 10. Hugh Grant and Hangzhou. 8th and 9th of July.

Friday was thankfully our last day of teaching the same song/lyrics lesson. It is funny how after the 5^th and 6^th time of repeating the same songs, sames jokes you seem to feel a little bit redundant and flat. But luckily we had some good classes today who at least pretended to be enthusiastic. After classes we decided to have an early night as we had to be on a bus at 7am the following morning for an excursion so Elise and I decided to grab something to eat and watch a movie.

We ventured into a Chinese supermarket and kinda ran wild and grabbed whatever looked appealing or had some English writing. I purchased a bottle of Apple flavored wine, to drink next night at the joy bar as beer was not doing well for my insides or my waistline. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to taste like shit. I threw it out the next day in my bin, and I see some hotel staff swigging from it shortly after. Good on them.

However on the dinner front we decided to brave street food. I mean it was potatoes how sick could you get. We braved some deliciousness from a man cooking potatoes in a big wok like thing, with spices and herbs out the front of the smoothie place where everyone would have mango smoothies. I succumbed once and my stomach hated me, but it was great I ain’t gonna lie.

Afterwards we watched ‘Notting Hill’ on Elise’s laptop and I gushed about how much I fancy Hugh Grant and how I’d totally still marry him, even though he has pasty English knees (huh Carly). But maybe not this Hugh Grant.

Next morning we woke early to depart for Hangzhou, which we were told was actually pronounced Hungchow. It was the the capital and largest city in ZheJiang province in Eastern China. It had a population of probably 4 million and had some spectacular sights! The ride in took almost 3 hours, but luckily I charged both my ipods so the music was a flowing. It had been so long since I had actually sat down and listened to some Pumpkins or Beatles so I just sat back and absorbed the scenery.

First stop was a place called West Lake. West Lake is a UNESCO World Heritage site which spans across 33km2, we walked across a bridge which translated to something like ‘Broken Bridge’, which they were very quick to assure us that it was not and never was actually broken. We then walked along the water past a number of wedding photo shoots. I am not sure if the were for a magazine or what but they were all beautiful. But I realized Chinese men in suits do not come across very masculine.

Next we hopped on the bus and went to a restaurant for lunch. The lunch was lovely, but I was tricked into eating jellyfish.

Next we went to a Buddhist temple, where we made wishes, ate lotus flowers and finally ended the night at a strip of markets and shops in a beautiful village. It was there that I was able to have my first Big Mac in weeks and let me tell you, it was amazing.