Well... I have been lazy.

I haven't posted in awhile. I even wrote a post almost a week ago, and never posted it! So I'm pasting it below... remember that it's outdated. :)

Well, I'm finally getting around to giving some details about our trip this past week. We had friday-tuesday off due to the May Day holiday (it's like labor day here in China). We didn't have our passports until last minute, so we couldn't really make plans for a trip very far from home (you need your passport to book a hotel). We decided to spend our time in Hangzhou. For 5 yuan, we can take the bus from Fuyang to Hangzhou (about 1.5 hour ride if it's during peak hours). They leave Fuyang every 15 minutes or so. We packed our bags and hopped on! We had no hotel booked ahead of time. We figured if we couldn't find one, we could just take a bus home again. We found one pretty quickly. We booked 3 nights for about $100... which means it wasn't the prettiest hotel in the world! We had stains on the carpets and ants on the floor, but the beds were neat and clean, we had a western toilet, and 3 locks on the door. :) Most cheaper hotels have double rooms, but they have 2 single beds. You have to pay extra for a big bed. We didn't know how to ask for one, anyway.. it worked alright! One thing I've noticed here is that the beds seem shorter.

Over the weekend we did lots of stuff around the West Lake. We arrived saturday morning. Saturday was definitely an adventure. We walked to the West Lake and it starting sprinkling. It ended up raining all day long. We bought umbrellas and kept walking. We wanted to find the Hangzhou Zoo, which is on the west part of the lake. We didn't realize how far it was! We decided to take a taxi. The traffic was so bad that the taxi finally told us to get out... I think we were costing him a lot of money! He showed us a map of how to get there. We left thinking it'd be a mile or so (at least I did). We ended up walking for probably another 2 hours. We were soaked through and through! We finally got there at about 4:00 pm. We had time to see a couple things before it closed; some soggy deer, a cute red panda and a cuter panda, some giraffe, etc. We left, preparing ourselves for another long hike. There weren't really any taxis out that way, and we were hungry. We walked some more, and found an Indian restaurant at about 6:30. It was sooo nice to sit down and eat. We'd been walking steadily since about 11:00 that morning!

The food was amazing (as was the taxi that took us home from dinner). The rest of our time in Hangzhou was warm and sunny. We walked along the lake, took two trips to the island in the middle, sat at a couple tea houses, read, wrote, and cross-stitched. We went to a museum, ate good food, shopped for souveniers.

A big highlight of the trip? FOOD! We ate like royalty. One of the best things about Hangzhou? McDonalds!!! We ate there twice. Fast food restaurants in China have great service. They always have a lot of cashiers going. They have people specifically there to clean the tables, too. You just leave your tray. The second you scoot your chair out to leave, they are there. This is the way most stores are. At the supermarket, people are just standing by waiting to help. At restaurants where you have servers, they will bring the menu and just wait patiently until you are ready. This drives me insane, because I feel rushed; but really, it's what they are supposed to do. It takes some getting used to though!

We also ate at Lou Wai Lou, one of the famous restaurants in Hangzhou. We got one of the city's signature dishes, Beggar's Chicken. It's a whole chicken, stuffed with herbs and mushrooms and wrapped in lotus leaves. They bury it in the mud and bake it. It was the most tender chicken I've ever had; it just fell off the bone! We also got veggies (bok choy and mushrooms), sour fish soup (I actually LOVED it!) and lotus root. We also hit up a DQ, a Pizza Hut, and KFC. Ever since our trip, I've been feeling sick. I hate to say it, but I think it was all the american food! My stomach is getting used to the Chinese food; lots of veggies, oils, rice. It can't take deep fried greasiness anymore. Have I learned my lesson? Will I avoid McDonalds while in Hangzhou next time? No.

People have asked.. what do people eat for snacks here? So I'm going to share the most common...
-fruit: Lots of apples, bananas, fresh pineapple. Whatever is in season, I think.
-corn on the cob: They sell this all over. KFC. The street vendors. The zoo. Everywhere. You see people walking down the street all the time munching on it (they stick it on a long stick, so you can eat it easily).
-skewers (meat, cauliflower, lotus roots...) Street vendors have the raw stuff sitting out and you pick something. They throw it on the grill and viola!
-ice cream: There are ice cream freezers at almost every little shop around. They eat a lot of ice cream bars, since it gets so hot.
-sunflower seeds

Those are the main things I see. I'm partial to the corn and ice cream :) Anyway, the trip was great. The lake was beautiful, and the weather was perfect. Now we're gearing up for a weekend at home!