My turn part 3

No jet lag yet. Oh wait. Except for the part where everyone is asleep except me. Doug and I woke up last night between 1 and 3am. We discussed our day. I was just totally spazzy. At one point Doug said, "are you really this hyper or are you just trying to annoy me?" Isn't he funny?

The highlight of the day for me was our meal in Hangzhou. At an exquisite restaurant called Hong Ni. We rode up to the 4th floor and were taken to a private room in the corner with windows across 2 sides. Glass doors were closed behind us and we had the place to ourselves. The 5 of us sat around a table that could have seated 10, with a huge glass lazy-susan in the middle. The server came and poured tea, then a succession of servers came in with 6 different dishes: beef and onions, pork and corn, something green, rice and peas, egg drop soup and dim sum. It was heaven. We (most of us) ate with chopstix, and I must say we dined in style! The person who didn't eat with chopstix had brought his own plastic fork just in case, so the meal was pretty much magical.

Gotta put in a word for breakfast. Not a breakfasty thing in sight. Well, ok, there were brown hard-boiled eggs. Didn't know if they were chicken, so I was one and passed by. I had fried rice and a red bean bun. I could get into that for breakfast every day. Hey! What a great coincidence! I get to!

By the way, the destination of Hangzhou (small town population of 8,000,000) was because of a very historic lake - West Lake. Emperors for centuries have visited West Lake as a retreat. There were gondolas all over it. We took a wooden boat out to an island that was created out of the dredged-out bottom. The island was a paradise of gardens. One photo-op after another. Stunning. Doug will get the photos off the camera tomorrow.

Oh, and on the way out to West Lake, we stopped at a 1,000 year old pagoda called the 6 harmonies Pagoda. The 6 harmonies are N,S,W,E,heaven,earth. There is an amazing tidal wave that occurs there and 1,000 years ago, they thought it was evil spirits causing it, so they built the pagoda to ward them off. It is 13 levels high on the outside and 6 levels high on the inside. We climbed to inside level 3. SO COOL!! And incredibly beautiful.

Hey, who says Chinese food doesn't stay with you? We got back to our hotel at 8pm without dinner and dropped into bed.

OH MY GOODNESS - you're probably dying to know whether we experience squatty potties today aren't you??!! How could I forget? Actually, you could sell me on these. No yucky seat to worry about. Of course, you'll want complete confidence in your leg joints and muscles. Squat pot + trick knee = disaster. Not speaking from experience, but it's amazing what can occur to you in the moment. So yes, we experienced squatty potties today. No big deal.

No wait, the tea house. Forgot about that too. We were taken to quite the tea plantation. Tea plants terraced up and down steep hillsides. Gorgeous. The peace and stunning natural beauty reminded us of the atmosphere you feel in Napa. We were escorted into what in Beijing would be called a Hutong - a courtyard surrounded by apartments. We passed through the first courtyard that had a pond with a giant teapot fountain and through an archway into another courtyard. We went into a tea room off the 2nd courtyard and given a lesson in tea. Specifically green tea. It is grown there in 3 qualities. The highest quality they don't export, and in fact is only available to political leaders and dignitaries. It was shown to us (we were invited to sniff it) but we tasted the 2nd grade. It doesn't taste AT ALL like any green tea I've ever had. What the heck happens to it on it's way to the US? This stuff smelled like SPINACH! Our tea teacher even said so! I'm not sure I like it. In fact I was pretty sure I didn't like it. But hey, are you kidding? Tea in China??! Of course we bought some to bring home. You all need to taste it too!

All right gotta go. This is just . . . wow.