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“Our food is moving!” – Eating and Exploring in Hangzhou

For those who’ve never heard of Hangzhou before (us, until 3 weeks ago), it’s Shanghai’s next door neighbor and the capital of Zhejiang province.  Shanghai is so big and important that it basically makes up its own province, but they call it a municipality.  Yikes, China is confusing! Despite its obscurity in the West, Hangzhou actually boasts 9 million residents and several tourist attractions.  We spent two days there visiting Tommy’s old college roommate, Bin Yang.  He was a great guide, showing us the highlights and introducing bizarre and delicious new food.

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East Meets West: Shanghai

For our Golden Week holiday, Tommy and I had the chance explore Hangzhou and Shanghai.  I’ll share more on Hangzhou later, where we had a great time catching up with Tommy’s old roommate Bin and trying weird new foods (have you ever watched your meal die in front of you? We now have!).  But for now, Shanghai!  This city knocked it out of the park with its crazy skyline – sorry, Hong Kong! – and blend of new and old, East and West.

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“I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

AKA, Teaching English in China. (The title is the standard response to “How are you?” that we hear multiple times a day, every day, shouted in chorus by roomfuls of Chinese students.  We are trying to teach them good, okay, and so-so, but they seem really stuck on this ingrained answer!)

Between random class cancellations and our visa trip to Hong Kong, we’ve had a pretty light workload these first couple weeks. I didn’t really want to give an opinion until we’d settled into it a little more, but with another holiday coming up now seems as good a time as any.  So, how is teaching? In general, we like it!  The kids are adorable, the teachers are friendly, and we’re working less than half the hours we would at home.

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We’re Not in China Anymore…

…Just kidding, kind of! This week we spent Monday and Tuesday in Hong Kong, a special administrative region which acts autonomously.  It is still technically part of China, but you’re required to go through customs and get exit and entry stamps in your passport.  I know, we don’t get it either.  We didn’t have much time to explore – the main purpose of our visit was to fix our visas – but what time we did have we absolutely loved!

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Yangshuo: Airlock into China

Edit: In the 10 months we lived in China, we traveled a lot and realized how hard it is to find accurate, detailed information online.  While this blog was originally intended to keep friends and family up-to-date and is often conversational in tone, I’ve decided to go back and add more in-depth information for those planning their own trip!  If you have any further questions, feel free to shoot us a message!

Time moves at a different speed in China. It’s like you’ve gotten thrown into a weird alternate dimension that throws you back and forth in time, sometimes feeling like it’s been two months and other times two days. In reality, we’ve been here for about two weeks.  We’ve gotten bizarrely adjusted to being constantly surrounded by an unrecognizable language and different looking everything, but each day we still encounter some small new adjustment that throws us for a loop and reminds us that we’ve only just started this adventure.

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