Out and About (9/2)

Ever the accommodating guest, I simply follow my host Tonny around wherever he chooses to take me. But tonight I simply couldn’t face another 30-40- minute car ride to a restaurant where we sit for two hours or more with far too many dishes coming in the door and everyone except me conversing in Mandarin. So I boldly suggested, “Can we eat somewhere close by tonight?”

 

Lo and behold, we ate in our very hotel! Just Tonny, me and a young man named Chu who spoke a little English and will be the driver tomorrow as the three of us go on some rural excursion into unknown (for me) territory.  Miraculously, were finished with the meal some 20 minutes later! Joy of joys! 

 

To celebrate, I bid them goodnight and instead of going into my room, took the elevator the 19 floors back down to wander around the neighborhood. The temperature was in a tolerable late 70’s range with a cooling breeze. I was determined to walk closer to this visually-appealing pagoda I see every night from my window. Following my nose led me to an industrial back street with auto mechanic shops. In a little funky square were a few families with some booming recorded music and three women stepping around these unusual revolving pitchers whipping them with whips in time to the music. Huh? But it made for an interesting little dance and an explosive percussive soundtrack.

 

My back street got darker and darker and more remote and it seemed a little edgy for a tourist to be walking there. Nevertheless, got closer to the pagoda (see photo) but no obvious path up to it and probably wouldn’t have been a good idea in the dark anyway. 

 

So back to the brightly lit street next to my hotel and walking past all the stalls serving noodles or selling drinks or toilet seats. One older sister walking so sweetly with her younger, some shirtless older men hanging out, a man finished his water in the plastic bottle and just throws it on the sidewalk, further on a young boy is sweeping in front of his stall. A man pushing a cart loaded with bananas has a looping recording (ever 5 seconds or so!) advertising his wares. How lazy can you get? Whatever happened to calling them out yourself in your own varied musical voice? Not only is the recording unvarying and lifeless, but how can the man stand to hear it over and over and over and over again without some part of his brain shutting down for mere survival? 

 

At any rate, I found myself enjoying the more “people’s version” of China than these fancy hotels and overdone banquets. This particular hotel —the Archer—actually has one of the nicest rooms I’ve ever been put up in. Simple enough but also elegant and with this wonderful view. But truthfully, I’d probably be just as happy as a simple clean people’s version with a ceiling fan. 

 

Felt so good to be walking and the lack of opportunity when teaching all day is definitely one of the down sides of this traveling music teacher’s life. A mere 3.5 miles according to my device, but that’s way more than the last days walking from room to the car and the car to my teaching room and back and forth. Again, if I could talk more with my host and the evenings hadn’t been so hot and the dinners didn’t last two hours, I could have done some evening walking. Actually, last year in Beijing, even in 95 degrees each day, I did walk from my hotel to my teaching room and back, a comfortable couple of miles. But in Hangzhou I taught in the same hotel where I stayed and here it was clearly too far to walk. 

 

At any rate, feels just fine to hang up my teaching hat right now and spend the next two days seeing a bit of the countryside. Stay tuned.