Hangzhou, China (中国, 杭州) – 2011
After I graduated college I was lucky enough to be able to temporarily call Hangzhou, China my home. Hangzhou is the capital of the Zhejiang province on the southeastern coast of China. The city and its surrounding area are home to a little over six million people. It is a modern, wealthy city with plenty of natural scenery within its boundaries.
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- A guy cleaning the river. People here litter constantly. I saw one of my Chinese acquaintances throw an ice cream bar wrapper on the ground right in front of a trash can–this behavior does not seem too abnormal here. Although I did once see a girl throw some trash on the ground and a different girl said something to her, prompting her to pick it up; I hope to see more of this behavior while I’m here. Despite the littering, this is still one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever been to due to the fact that the government employs so many people to do nothing but clean in order to create jobs. It’s very hard for me not to look at some things from a western point of view. Some things that I find repulsive are so normal and part of daily life here–I have to constantly remind myself that I am in China and things are different here–and I don’t always succeed. I have had a great time here so far and thankfully I can count the number of truly bad days I’ve had on one hand, and most of the bad days have stemmed from ways in which I have struggled to drop my American glasses and accept that the way of life here is different.
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- I alternate between feeling like both of these guys. Right now I feel like I have the star on my head. I’m not really sure what this is supposed to mean so I will assume that the artist just felt the same as I do.
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- Took this bus just to practice riding buses…wasn’t really interested in where it was going.
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- Cool friend…cool drink…
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- Shawna crossing a stone bridge. For how amazing this area was there was virtually nobody out there. That really is more of my style…isolation.
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- I gave this frog some Bubblicious and he tried to one-up my bubble-blowing skills by blowing bubbles from each side of his mouth. I would say he was successful in one-upping me.
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- Male Trithemis aurora (crimson dropwing). This lil guy “dropped” his “wings” and decided to wedge himself between my pointer finger and thumb.
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- Acisoma panorpoides (Asian pintail). This is one of the dragonflies I was excited about seeing in Asia. Well, as you can see, I saw him! The males are blue and the females are green. Shawna was impressed with how excited I got when I spotted some of these little guys.
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- A different view of the bridge Shawna was on. Somehow we ended up staying at a nearby out of desperation and we found this spot the next day (this was the right after we got kicked out of the apartment the school was providing). Though it was incredibly frustrating at the time, it ended up being a blessing…this seems to have been a recurring theme since I’ve been in China.
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- My office in the apartment. It is also where I sleep. Yes, that is a pitcher plant hanging outside my window!! A pitcher plant is similar to a venus fly trap in that it is a carnivorous plant. The plant secretes a fluid in the bottom of each pitcher which has a fragrance that attracts flies and other insects. The insects fly in seeking food and they have trouble climbing back up the walls of the bulb because of it’s texture. Consequently, the insects drown in the fluid and the plant dissolves and digests them. Usually business and marketing majors use pitcher plants as case studies of successful professionals in their fields.
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- Danielle, one of my roommates, chilling on the roof after it rained.
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- I smile when I’m alone.
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- Shawna sitting at a little bakery/cafe we liked going to. They play the absolute shittiest music there. The playlist literally never changes and it only contains about 20 songs. Some of the songs include: -instrumental version of My Heart Will Go On (Titanic theme song) -George Michael – Careless Whisper (Guilty Feet Have Got No Rhythm) -half of (always cuts off) Backstreet Boys – As Long As You Love Me So…even though the place has a nice atmosphere…we had to leave early a few times due to the music.
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- Gatorade challenge. We had a Gatorade taste-test/contest to find out which Gatorade truly is the best in China. There are six flavors available in our area and my roommate Rich and I both had previously agreed that blue is hands-down the best. Danielle and Shawna didn’t really care as they are not Gatorade aficionados, however we still wanted to do a challenge. Shawna, Danielle, Rich and myself took turns being blindfolded and sipping cups, attempting to guess which color/flavor was which. The results were as we had predicted: blue was unanimously voted the best (or least worst according to Shawna) flavor of Gatorade.
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- Blindfolded…I was the first to give it a try.
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- Somehow when describing Gatorade it is much easier to use colors as descriptors than flavors. Using flavors seems to make them sound worse than they really are…for example the only way we could describe one of the flavors was that it smelled like cleaning solution. The worst (and easiest to describe) flavor was the neon green flavor, which…unbelievably tasted like milk tea.
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- Me chilling on the roof, probably after an intense jumprope workout.
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- “A small step forward a great progress of civilization” That is usually what I say to myself when I see a urinal…
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- Xixi National Wetland Park. This is a good escape from my new-found city life. However, people out at this park were so amazed by Shawna and I that one guy stopped his bike, got off and then asked if we would take a picture with him.
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- I was walking around a mountain unsure of where it went (and also unable to read the large red banner written in Chinese that probably would’ve sai d “no trespassing” or something if I had chosen to understand it). I came across this cool dilapidated-looking house that had a chicken walking around outside of it. Up on the mountain it was incredibly calm and peaceful. It also started thundering and the temperature was much cooler. Eventually the sky broke and it poured violently, briefly flooding the streets below so much that water was splashing and seeping in through the bus door on my way home.
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- Outside of Lingyin Temple. This place was one of my favorite historical sites we’ve been to so far. For me, the area outside of the temple is actually cooler than the temple itself. I didn’t really like the fat buddha on the right side of the picture but the other buddhas looked really cool.
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- One of the best friends I have met in China so far. I told him that he had relatives in America and that I would send a postcard to them if he would like. For some reason he didn’t answer me but I still consider us to be friends.
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- I made sure non-shooting.
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- Gigantic trillipede…these things were all over. I think they are also on the menu of a restaurant I frequently like to go to…
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- I was walking around for hours searching for a Fruit leather Suitcase and when I finally found it I realized it was just a glorified trashcan, or dustbin, as my Chinese friend insists on saying.
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- I love it when I find items on sale in a store…
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- One of the first Chinese friends I made on my own–Wendy!!
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