July 13 in China

 It is raining...all day...from the typhoon! We haven't been in any danger from it, just a lot of rain. It didn't slow us down, however!

After our breakfast, we went to see and play with some traditional Chinese toys. The Chinese yo-yo is huge...that was one of the toys. They also had something like hacks-sacks, a game sort of like jacks...except different (Joshua, Erica, Thalia- 'same same but different')...instead of metal jacks, they use little bean bag things..and there were more differences too...there was a game of dropping chopsticks into a bottle, and one where yiu raced to see who could transfer marbles from one container to another-moving the marbles with chopsticks.

 We all hopped on some carts and drove to a huge beautiful field of sunflowers (my favorite flower!), lotus blossoms, and other flowers that I don't know the names of. There were some old wooden arched bridges with an ancient pagoda in the background...it was absolutely breathtaking!

 All around Wuzhen, you see this blue cloth with white designs. So next, we went to the studio where they make it. They showed us the process of applying a waxy substance on white cloth using stencils for the design... Once it dries, they out it in a huge basket and lower it into a huge vat of indigo dye. Then the bolts of fabric are stretched outside to dry. It was pretty cool seeing them all outside drying (in the rain)!

 

We had an early lunch...and took off for a 1.5 hour ride to Hangzhou.

We asked Effee if this was a small town. "Yep, that's right" he said.
(8.8 million is the population). Obviously what size is large is open to interpretation!

 Our first stop was to pick up Royal, our guide for this small town:). "Royal"? I thought that was an odd name to pick for yourself! We first went to the Leifeng Pagoda. This was built in 977 BC! Then in the early 20th century, people started taking bricks from it...supposedly if you had part of the pagoda, your family would become wealthy. Well, in 1924, I guess one brick too many was removed because the pagoda collapsed! The one we visited was a rebuilt one...rebuilt as an exact replica...except for the elevators for those who don't want to walk to the top. It's situated by West Lake, which is another World Heritage sight by UNESCO. It's beautiful, for sure...but the rain put a little damper in the views that are there when its clear. Effee kept saying how happy he was about the weather...apparently a group that was 4 days ahead of us on this program had multiple heat stroke cases!

 We walked around West Lake after that...probably about a mile or more. A few of us had an "ambassadorial moment" for the negative. Here I was with my umbrella open...walking in one direction...a bus pulls up on one side of me...on the other side is a WALL of people standing around waiting for, I guess, another bus? I. The meantime an avalanche of LOUD umbrella toting Chinese come barreling toward me in the opposite direction. They don't slow down...they don't go around...they made no effort to keep their umbrella from poking your eye out...they just kept coming! There was no where for me to go so -when in China, do as the Chinese- so I just pushed my way through (although I did try to avoid poking any of their eyes out with my umbrella). I think Zack made it through before the avalanche got rolling too fast...but when I asked him how he was doing after we were through the storm, he didn't speak too highly of the situation!

 Because of time and weather...we were going to the night market here. Some got spending money from the ATM...we got our groups set, knew we had till 7 pm to go around the market, and off we went. A few had a great cultural experience by darting into a McDonalds! "A Chinese McDonalds!!!!" They were a bit excited. Some of us leaders took off down the road the market WAS SUPPOSE to be on. Well, a few faster delegates met us coming back towards the bus and told us there was no night market...um? We thought maybe they hadn't walked far enough ...so we kept walking... A few minutes later, Anthony and Brandon (?) came sprinting towards us and said Royal had just informed them that the night market wasn't happening because of the typhoon.

Off we went heading towards the bus. Anthony and Brandon (or was it Dickson?) had already found others and steered them back toward the bus!

Well, guess where all 30 delegates ended up? McDonalds! Yep,they were happy campers! Flurries, French fries, burgers... No telling how many were consumed. Some delegates constrained theirselves, knowing dinner would be served later... But some said the night market not happening was worth it since they got McDonalds! Haha... Some said they weren't homesick anymore since they had eaten there!

 Back at the hotel...everyone came down for dinner...including the McDonald's customers :)  Most of them ate again...probably, like me, thinking our time in China was winding down...