Hike and Sing 4/19/08

19 April 2008
It’s Rob Swan’s birthday today. I’m not going to make it to the internet today or probably tomorrow, so he’ll have to read this and know I thought of him.
We met Cat and her friend Jessie at the Mao Zedong statue at Zhejiang University to go for a “hike” this morning. The weather forecast was for sunny skies and about 15 minutes into the 20 minute walk to the statue, it started to sprinkle. I didn’t take an umbrella or wear my waterproof soft shell as I usually do here. By time we figured out which way we were going, the rain became more persistent. Jessie shared her umbrella with me and Cat shared hers with Shannon. Trish was the smart one and had brought her own. In America, unless we were already out on the trail, we probably would have said, “Oh, it’s raining. We’ll climb the mountain some other day.” But, we kept trekking.
Cat was wearing flimsy, but adorable, little flat black shoes. I questioned her comfort, as I had on my heavy duty, Gortex hiking boots. After all, she said we were going to climb a mountain. She assured me she would be fine and as we found our way to the trailhead, amid a zillion other people, I learned why – there were concrete steps all the way up the mountain. The irony of it is that I found climbing the steps to be more physically exhausting than climbing a mountain without steps. The mountain was not that high, just over 600km, I think. But if it were a clear day, which it was not, there would have been a great view of West Lake and the rest of Hangzhou. We could see some, but not much.
We started down the other side of the mountain and the trail was a little rougher with some slippery rocks. This made slow going, especially with the umbrella situation. We came to a small covered pavilion and learned we had gone too far and continuing the way we were would take us far away from the university. So we turned back and took another path downward, to end up in the Hangzhou Botanical Gardens, which we paid to walk through, but didn’t stop to smell the roses, so to speak. By this time everyone, except me had wet feet and everyone but Trish had at least one shoulder completely soaked. We were cold and hungry and wet.
So, we kept going and passed nearby Lingying Lu, but went back to the University. We walked longer than I thought we would until we came to a restaurant on campus that Cat knew. There, she ordered us a feast fit for Chinese royalty and we were grateful for the rest and the food. Jessie, could eat a lot, it was great to see such a healthy appetite.
We parted company for the midday rest, with the promise to meet back up at Mao at 7pm to go to the dance again. We all slept about 2 hours and were dragging a little. I was still full from lunch so didn’t eat dinner. We made it back to Mao about 7:15pm. At the courtyard in front of Mao, many students were gathered and Cat explained that there was going to be music played. So, we stood around and listened. Some boys offered to share their plastic drop sheet so we could sit, and we took them up on the offer. It turned out to be a sort of sing-in, which was quite fun. They sang mostly Chinese songs, but a couple we had heard before. They also sang a couple of American songs. It was fun and the boys were perfect gentlemen, seeming to be out of the fifties with their kindness. There was a little boy going around and collecting everyone’s glow-sticks, which was amusing. I took a picture of him and he spit on us. Then he started hitting other people. After that, he was on his own and no one would give him anymore glow-sticks.
We left with plans to go to KTV (karaoke) tomorrow, though a bit confusing because we’re going with XiaoPan tomorrow to the silk market and don’t know when we’ll get back home. Also, the students kept asking us if we thought 130 yuan (almost $20) was too expensive for 3 hours of karaoke. We didn’t think so, but are suspicious that it is too much for them. We’ll see.