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Last Saturday, we reunited with our Beijing NSLI-Y compatriots to spend a wonderful week in the lovely city of Hangzhou. 

I was particularly excited about the location for our second week of American Councils winter break programming because it was the site for my sister Xóchitl's program last summer (her resident director D, who is the RD for the kids in Beijing, organized this week's activities and the city, school, teachers and some of the host siblings were all the same for her). Xóchitl is probably the one I miss most in the world and so it was really wonderful to connect with her by spending time exploring her first home city in China. 

The first night in Hangzhou, we settled into the dorms at the Zhejiang University international department and watched the Olympics opening ceremony! I don't usually watch much of the Winter Olympics, so it was fun to be surrounded by people who were really into it and it was really interesting watching it through the Chinese media channels. 

On Sunday, it snowed! It was actual record low temperatures for Hangzhou this week (kind of ironic because Xóchitl experience record highs last summer). 

But no matter the weather, we dove right into the week's activities: an exploration of the city's culture in the form of a friendly scavenger hunt type of competition. 

My team was called the Tea Cups (茶杯), which we found fitting seeing as Hangzhou is the place in China most famous for its tea. My group included Keiondre (from Shanghai) and Cameron (from Beijing). We had an awesome time exploring the university and high school campuses as well as the surrounding area: including a meat/vegetable market to complete today's tasks (map making and price gathering). 

After we finished our tasks, we settled into this rad casbah-esque coffee shop with cushions and delicious rose tea.

We ate lunch at the school during which our task points for the morning were counted. After lunch, we learned a rad Mongolian dance from a Chou lao shi (who knew Xóchitl last summer!) and then went on a boat trip on the West lake and to the Yue Fei Temple.

On Monday we had the day to explore the downtown area, which was really neat. 

That evening we went to Mango Thai, a wonderful restaurant that Xó recommended. The spicy coconut vegetable curry was absolutely to die for!

Tuesday we went to the tea museum and beautiful fields!

There was an awesome group of Africans there who are touring Hangzhou on break from a yearlong military training outside of Beijing. They were so sweet and kept asking in French to take pictures with me. 

I learned a lot about the different kinds of tea as well as the tea making process and tasted some delicious tea! 

There was a rather disturbing occurrence when we were heading back to the bus and Paris got hit by a woman on a scooter who then got super angry and almost attacked Paris and wouldn't let go of him because she wanted some kind of compensation (for what I'm not sure since it was obviously her fault and neither she not her scooter were injured). We ended up calling the police and it was all worked out but it definitely shook everyone up a little bit. It was sad because she seemed really desperate, but apparently this is a rather common issue in China; there was even a skit about this very same situation happening on the New Years TV gala where they represent news stories from the year. 

In the afternoon, we went to an old emperor's home (a huge maze of beautiful rooms, walls and even caves)!

After that, we went to a famous Chinese medicine apothecary which was totally rad and walked around and tasted some of Hangzhou's famous treats. 

Wednesday, we had a lecture on Buddhism in China and then went to the famous Lei Feng Pagoda. The view of Hangzhou and the surrounding mountains was astounding.

After lunch, we had a lesson on Beijing opera and got to paint some masks!

Later that afternoon we went to the Ling Yin Buddhist temple which had absolutely gorgeous cave carvings of Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. 

After visiting the temple, we met our Hangzhou host families! Mine was super sweet and took me out to a restaurant called 外婆家 or Grandma's House where we ate all kinds of delicious food before coming home to their apartment where my Hangzhou host sister and I spent a long while sharing musicians/bands that we like.

Thursday afternoon, my host sister Si yue and I rode the bus to the High School Attached to Zhe Jiang University (our host school) for an afternoon learning and playing ma jiang! I learned to play a long time ago, but always feel a little rusty so it was nice to brush up on my skills and interact with all the Hangzhou host siblings! 

That evening, my host family taught me some Hangzhou dialect and my host sister taught me some currently-popular colloquialisms that will help me become more "di dao" (native)! My host sister's head teacher came to make a house call as they occasionally do (not something that happens in the U.S.) so I also got a little time to myself to relax, which was nice. 

Friday, we had a group discussion about innovation in America and China and then prepared for our final presentations, using our experiences this week to discuss the subject of tradition and innovation in Jiangnan culture. 

Everyone did very well and after the presentations, we had the final award ceremony in which my team took first place! 

Because it was officially the last day of the spring festival (元宵节: yuan xiao jie or lantern festival ), I celebrated that evening with my Hangzhou host family by going to the neighborhood where there was a show that included dancing, singing and taiji. We also ate 汤圆 (tang yuan: sesame paste surrounded by a glutinous rice mixture) and guessed the riddles (猜灯谜 cai deng mi) on the lanterns for prizes! 

It was a very lovely way to end this amazing week, because Saturday we headed back to Shanghai for a weekend to prepare for school, which begins again on the 17th. 

It was an absolutely amazing week though. I couldn't believe how stunning Hangzhou is, and I think it's honestly one of my favorite cities in China so far.