Last two days at Mingtown

Trip Start Jun 01, 2011

110

Trip End Jul 01, 2017

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Where I stayed

Mingtown Garden International Hostel

MingTown

Flag of China Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Saturday, August 20, 2011

Two more days on the western edge of Hangzhou, been here for 8 days and my apartment (yeeech) should be ready to check in. I am going to wait till Monday as I am in no hurry to live in that dismal place. I've learned a lot in the days that I have been here. How to order, say thank you, not get ripped off by taxi's, laugh and be patient with ridiculous situations, how not to step in whatever it happens to be. Now to leave this city of 8 million for the smaller, more isolated district of Xiasha again. Hopefully there will be one or two foreign teachers, or english speaking Chinese folks. We'll see. Once I get a bicycle and learn the bus system things will be a breeze, and I can stay in Mingtown on the weekends.

Today and tomorrow I plan to visit a large active Buddhist temple and then get out in the country and see some villages. Might even take the cable car up Biafeng Shan and see the area.

Last night my friends Takashi and Oxanna went to the nearby jazz club. It was a hoot watching a Chinese man playing "Blue Suede Shoes" and many other songs with as much soul and feeling as any American artist I've seen. Sad that Oxanna is leaving today and Takaski is going to another nearby hostel. The two silly Fujian girls have moved on but I still have a couple Chinese "running buddies" to get in trouble with.

The Chinese are always fun, they aren't nearly as selfish and full of themselves as many people in the West (including yours truly), they have lived off little to nothing for so long and still know how to just be natural human beings. No pretense, no false confidence, few insecurities, they are what you see.

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