Today the moms and us went to Hangzhou, which is famous for its Buddhist temples and large lake (/shi-hu/). We had to leave at 7am to beat the traffic though -___- NOT fun. But, our driver was SO cool. I really liked him! Apparently he has the same last name as us, Wu, like same character and all. So me and Joanna called him Uncle Wu :) And he taught us Chinese! This morning for breakfast, my mom ordered one each of all the baos from the bao place. Omgoodness! I’ve completely been missing out…they have a lot more baos than I thought. I only kknew they had meat bao, meat & vegetable bao, vegetable bao, and red bean bao. But my mom ordered spicy meat bao, spicy pickled vegetable bao, spicy rice noodle bao, turnip bao, and all these other baos that I didn’t know existed. And we ate them in the 3-hour car ride, so Uncle Wu taught us how to say all of them, because even though my mom can speak Mandarin her tones aren’t totally right, so we learned from a true Shanghainese. It was funny because my mom was in the front seat, and me, Joanna, and Joanna’s mom were in the back seat and everytime Uncle Wu would say something, the 3 of us in the backseat would repeat what he said like obedient little students.
When we got to Hangzhou, we went to see the lake and took a boat ride on it (see picture)! The boat took us to an island in the middle of the lake, which had a bunch of sacred rock sculptures and picturesque scenes, but it was hard to appreciate because there were SO many people there. It was just massive crowds everywhere, because it’s such a tourist attraction. So we walked around the island, then came back to the mainland. After that, we went to lunch at a little restaurant nearby that served authentic Shanghainese dishes. We had a bunch of little things like fish, dumplings, mai fun, and other stuff that I can’t remember. It was so good :) After lunch we went to the Buddhist temple that Hangzhou is famous for..apparently it’s one of the oldest temples in the world, built in 362, and it’s got a BIG FAT Buddha. But we didn’t see the big fat Buddha, because the place was ridiculous! We paid to get IN to the area with all the temples & structures, then if we wanted to see any of the temples or structures up close, we had to pay AGAIN to get in to that. It was ridiculous. It would be like paying admission to Disneyland, then having to pay for each ride too. So, needless to say, we didn’t pay to see anything up close. Instead we just walked around and took pictures from the outside. The temple was HUGE and everyone was burning incense, so it wasn’t really a happy place to be considering we’re all Christians. After that, we went to a Christian church in Hangzhou (see picture). I don’t know the history behind it and everything, but it is ENORMOUS. My mom said it’s comparable to the Vatican in Italy. Some lady told us that the congregation is now 7000 people. GINORMOUS, I know. It was REALLY impressive. It was a lot more impressive and pleasant than the Buddhist temple. Just another testament to G’s amazingness!
By the end of the church, we were super duper tired so we decided to go back to Shanghai to eat dinner. GUESS WHAT WE ATE???? TSIN JIEN BAO!!!!!!!!!!!!! (see picture) If you’ve forgotten what that is, it’s the pan-fried dumpling with soup & meat inside. It’s SOOOOO good. I think I’ve decided that if I had to survive on one thing for the rest of my life, it would be tsin jien bao. So Uncle Wu found the street for us (it’s kind of hidden) and took us there, and we ate TONS of tsin jien bao. It was SOOO good. And Joanna’s mom was like AMAZED at how they make it, because they make it so fast and efficiently and it was SO good that it thoroughly baffled her. I don’t blame her though…it’s that good, it’ll blow your mind. But, my mommy said that the street that the tsin jien bao place is on is going to be demolished at the end of this year to make way for more skyscrapers. So sad. But there is another place to get it…I think there are two locations, and the one we went to tonight was just one of them. But I don’t think the other one is as good. IT’S OKAY THOUGH, I will eat it everyday until I leave so that I have enough to last me until the next time I come to Shanghai.
Anyways, we ate that and then Uncle Wu took us back to the hotel, because it was getting late. Today was SUCH a fun day today…I love hanging out with the moms! And I’ve made a new friend…Uncle Wu :) I asked him to be my friend in Chinese today, just like Leon from the migrant school taught me :) My Chinese skills are improving! Hopefully by the end of the program ill be able to actually hold a conversation :)
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