I cheated and got the Peace Hotel concierge to get our train tickets for us so I didn’t have to embarrass myself when attempting to buy them at the train station. Trains are divided into classes “Soft Seat” and “Hard Seats” There is a slight price difference 33 RMB ($4) for hard seats 47 RMB ($6) for soft seats for the 2 hour trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou. Hard seats are not really hard but the soft seat have a little more leg and seat room and the soft seat waiting room alone is worth the extra. We were unable to get soft seat tickets to Hangzhou so Maria and Paula had the full effect of 1000 heads turning at once when the ‘3 LoaWai’ walked into the packed hard seat waiting room. I am sure they had seen foreigners before but not without a tour guide, flag and lots of luggage. Except for my goodie suitcase I was lugging back to my apartment, all we had were small backpacks. After a sleepy 2 hour train ride, we arrived in Hangzhou and took a taxi to Xiasha. The poor driver had to figure out how to get there with just my pointing and my 3 Chinese directional words (left- zuo, right- you, and straight- zhi). Unfortunately, the poor guy had an added distraction. On the drive I felt like a little kid trying to show off all my toys at Christmas. I would get so excited that I kept pointing to places and things I wanted Paula and Maria to notice. Of course the driver assumed my pointing and strange talk meant that I wanted him to turn here or there. I learned to keep my finger down after a while. (Don’t worry I gave him a tip - which they do not expect).
We arrived safely at the hotel/apartment and got ready for our short trip on the ‘stuff it van’ to the DVD store and WuMei. I made them ride in the back – tee he he – In WuMei we bought some Great Wall wine. Paula said it was ok but not Great. It was sort of hard to tell which kind to buy so Paula selected a bottle that cost 60 RMB which is very expensive here – but only about 8 bucks in the US. I made them walk thru and experience the meat section of the supermarket with all the live eels, snakes, turtles, fish, frogs, and rabbits. It looks more like a pet store than a meat market but that is how they sell it. Food in the US hardly resembles its original beginnings. Our food is so processed and ‘homogenized’. Is that good or bad? Paula was definitely turned off by the live animals so it was bad for her. I am just glad I don’t have to gut or clean any live animals – give me those nice processed, pre-prepared homogenized, frozen dinners any day.
After our WuMei trip we rode back on the nice new B1 bus and joined Nathan, Elizabeth, and Ricky for a dinner together in our restaurant. Afterwards we all went to English Corner so Paula and Maria could see a typical classroom and meet some students. Paula and Maria were my “show and tell items. The kids enjoyed comparing Maria’s Yankee accent against Paula’s southern accent and they especially enjoyed the show that Paula put on. She did a ‘buck dance’ and some ham bone. I have no idea what the kids were thinking, but most of their mouths were open. I was laughing so hard I forgot to take pictures but Maria did.
