Arrival

We arrived on Saturday at the Yellow Dragon Hotel here in Hangzhou, after a lovely cab ride through the outskirts and city of Hangzhou. The best way I can describe driving in China is perilous. Someone in class described crossing the street as Frogger. I'm sure there are worse places, but they're treading the perilous edge between order and chaos on the streets, that's for sure! The center of the road is for cars and buses. Lanes are simply suggestions, and changing lanes is a matter of simply turning the wheel into the next lane, regardless of who or what is there. Pedestrians seem to just wander into traffic and manage not to die. You may think I'm being dramatic, but I just about lost it watching two ice cream cone eating children just stand and watch as our bus passed within inches of them. Literally inches. It's quite an experience.
We passed by fascinating high rise apartment homes, either covered in tiles or bricked in interesting geometric patterns. Roofs are tiled or metal, although it could also be a metallic finish. Then there were huge areas of gardens behind each row of homes, no clue if they were ocmmunity gardens or run by groups of farmers. Interspersed between the sparkling 5-7 storey apartments were old buildings, or the remains of them as they're being replaced.

The hotel is lovely. Very modern, nicer than the franchised Mariotts of the Americas in my opinion. The staff scurried and found the English speakers as we arrived, and one by one they checked us into our rooms. The bellhop very nicely dropped off our luggage right at our room. The room is nice, clean, and has the amenities you would need. It's a rather Beaver setup with two single beds, and they're hard as rocks. But the linens are top notch and the shower is hot. Which was very welcome, since my luggage was still missing. I made do with the clothes I had on, and headed out shopping.

We walked to the right of our hotel, where there are a string of shops in the ground level of the neighboring buildings. Each store is the size of a large bedroom - maybe 20x10 feet. Small display window, and mostly clothing. Fashion is fascinating here - they're very daring with what they wear, and designer-type duds are forgiving on an Asian silhouette. They had all kinds of adorable dresses and skirts, jackets and pants. The T-shirt shops are my favorite - nothinglike random words to cover a t-shirt. I found one that said "In God we trust, legal tender of the United States, and The Tarheel state". Quite entertaining. Love that random grouping of words. I think I'll be buying a few shirts, as I think they're fabulously Chinese.

Interacting with the shopkeepers is wonderful. They're generally happy to see you, but they did follow us around every store as much as they could in the little space. One lady helped me try on these very nice tailored jackets in Chinese brocades - modern, yet in the fancy schmancy silk. It was rather smart, but the green one that looked the best was a bit tight around the hips. We'll see what a few weeks of walking all over the People's Republic does to that...

Finally, I gave up and we headed back to the hotel. I promised myself I was just sitting down for a minute, as it was only 6:30pm or so local time. That turned into a happy cuddle in bed after a very welcome warm shower. I watched a very cool Chinese ballet on TV. The principal female dancer was ridiculously supple and terribly thin. She bent herself like a piece of al dente spaghetti and floated all over the place. The best description of the plot I can give was that she and her lover had been separated, I guess by a shipwreck, and she was struggling through the sea to get to land. They had these huge pieces of blue silk they were waving above and around and below her, like we did as kids with parachutes in gym class. They even simulated waves by folding it above and below itself and running past each other. Pretty surreal, especially in my jet lagged state! When her pirate boyfriend pranced out, I decided I'd had enough and curled up for sleep. I vaguely remember Mimi bringing my suitcase over, which was sweet of her. I passed out for the rest of the night...