Old Town of WuZhen

Last weekend Micah and I went to the old town of Wu Zhen (you can google it), in the north of Zhejiang, where I live. The only bus in the morning left at 6:55 so we had to get up really early, but it was good cause by the time we changed buses once and found our way to the old town it was already afternoon. The town is something like 1300 years old and they say people have been living in that area for more than 6500 years. So we spent the whole afternoon and evening inside this old town that had all these canals running through it.
We could have taken a boat, but we decided we're not that touristy.









Inside they had all kinds of artisan workshops to show some of the old stuff from the town. A lot of things were built out of wood, and hand carved. Things like door posts, window shutters, and beds.






They also had their own brewery (do you call a liquor making place a brewery??) of local rice wine. They were using the ancient method from that town to ferment some horrible smelling bai jiu, 白酒. But of course they were really just making the wine for the tourists, it was still interesting to see the distillation and fermentation process in the big clay jars.


And what would a tourist town with canals and boats be without a Kungfu boat? Certainly these old men performing Kungfu aren't just enjoying their favorite pastime.






We rushed at the end of the day to make it to the famous 'Bridge inside a Bridge', 桥里桥. When we read about it on the tourist map it sounded a lot more interesting, saying that these two bridges which connect at one end and cross two intersecting canals can each be seen inside the closer bridge, like 2 rainbows, from both sides of the bridges. But when we got there we were a little disappointed because yes, you can see the bridges but only a little part or it. Anyways, they were pretty bridges, just like all the bridges in the old town. Oh, and I should mention that the west part of the town has been completely rebuilt about 20 years ago to look like the ancient town. So the buildings and bridges aren't even original.






We decided to stay in a hostel inside the town, which was kinda expensive, but worth it because we got to see all the canals at night and the sunset and sunrise the next day. We got up super early, hence why we saw the sunrise, to go to Shanghai.




So, in this super touristy old town the only calm time of day is before sunrise. Its so calm that you can see the fog sitting on top of the still water of the canals. No boats are moving, all the boatmen are still asleep on their boats. The streets are deserted and all the souvenir shops are boarded up from the night. The streets are clean and all the scenic spots are open. It's so nice at 6:30 you almost feel as if you really are in an ancient town.






And I hope the picture of the sunrise speaks for itself.


We missed the bus at 7:15 cause we thought it was at 7:50, so we took a bus to another city to catch the train to Shanghai. We spent the afternoon shopping for fakes, it's the thing to do in Shanghai, they have really good fake watches, jackets, bags, or anything else, but you have to know how to bargain hard because the first price they give you is at least 5x too expensive. It was kind of fun bargaining and trying to get the price it should cost, but also supper stressful.

At night we walked around the French concession and the Bund, the old colonial facade of the west side of the river.

Fuyang富阳, my new home in China

Now I'm living in Fuyang 富阳, Zhejiang province 浙江. It's not the Fuyang the city in Anhui that everyone first thinks when they hear Fuyang. It's a small city, for a Chinese city, that is actually under Hangzhou's 杭州 jurisdiction. Fuyang is divided by the Fuchun river that runs though the city into Hangzhou, and makes a really nice riverfront on the northern bank. And It's actually a pretty good deal that Fuyang is part of Hangzhou because they have buses that go to Hangzhou all day non-stop and they only cost 7 yuan, about $1.15, and take about an hour to get there. So I live close enough to the big city to go shopping for western stuff if I need but I don't have to live in the busy big city, and I don't get too spoiled by having western stuff all the time. It also means that Fuyang is a very wealthy city, the complete opposite of Tongzi. Zhejiang is the 2nd wealthiest province in China, and Hangzhou is a very wealthy city of Zhejiang. You can see people driving Ferarris and Porches as their everyday car. And we've seen some Lamborghinis, Maserattis, and Hummers. This is definitely the other face of China.

Hangzhou is known for West Lake. It's supposed to be 'heaven on Earth' according to the Chinese proverb, 上有天堂下有苏杭. It's the end of the Grand canal 大運河 from Beijing, that was built between 604 and 609 C.E. and has many beautiful smaller canals throughout the city. It's also famous for many other things like Longjin Tea, and Hickory nuts, and West Lake sour fish, and it's also one of the 4 Chinese silk cities. All this means is that Hangzhou is a huge tourist destination and the shop owners are really good at ripping off foreigners.

Hangzhou Silk market. Hangzhou West Lake.







Anyways, I feel pretty lucky about finding a job here. It's exactly what I was looking for when I was searching for schools but when I first found this school it didn't sound like what I wanted. I'm working in a regular high school, but they call it a 'key' high school because there are so many good students in this area that it's a difficult high school to get into. In China the students have to test into high school (or have the 'good relations' 有好的关系) since high school isn't mandatory and is therefore only preparing the students for college entrance exams高考. Half the students graduating from this high school go to 'key' Chinese universities, basically Ivy League schools, which is very good when looking at how many students there are in China and that there are only a handful of key universities. There are 2 campuses for my school, I'm in the South River High School 江南中学 where they have a middle school and grades 1 and 2 of high school. Then there is the FuZhong 富中 main campus for grade 3 students and the AP center, which prepares about 130 students for the SATS and TOEFL so that they can study in the States.

They've done a lot of work to make the South River campus look really nice, and it is. It's also fully equiped with projectors and internet, the labs are very well stocked, and they even have heat in the classrooms (it's a big deal for a Chinese high school in the south).

My apartment is basic, Chinese style, but enough for me. And it's a real apartment this time, which means I have a front door not just a gate, and my kitchen is inside my house not in the hallway, lol (I miss Tongzi). I also have a small laundry room with a lot of windows, I put a table and some chairs out there and it's just like a back balcony.

My first weekend here I went with the teachers in the AP center to this small island in the Fuchun river for dinner. And I even made a few friends in the AP center.

国庆节National Day break in Guizhou贵州

In China we have three big holiday breaks during the year; 国庆节 National Holiday in the first week of Oct., 春节 Spring festival is a month break in January, then 劳动节 Labor Day the May 1st holiday.

So I decided to go back to Guizhou to visit my friends. I flew into Chongqing. Then I went to meet up with Noah, an English teacher from Zunyi who helped me a lot with some bank problems I had last year. He invited me to go with him and some other teachers and students to 'climb' a mountain. I do miss the mountains in Guizhou, but they're nothing like hiking in the States.






Some of the students were really cute and couldn't wait to practice their English with me. They're still excited to meet new foreigners there, unlike my new students in Fuyang who are accustomed to having foreign teachers.


And of course there was a temple at the top of the mountain. But it was a bit too cloudy to see anything!!





Afterward we went to a restaurant in the countryside. The ride there was so bumpy, I'd forgotten how bad those roads can be.











Some countryside pics. The rice fields after harvest and a young boy bringing the village ox back after working in the field.








Back in Tongzi I got to see some of my former students. Diana and I in JianJun's supermarket. And have lunch with some friends.




I miss Tongzi and all my friends but I'm still happy I chose to live in a new place and experience a different part of China.

Summer gardening

I was looking for a job for the summer that would allow me to be outside as much as possible and add to my studying of plants and sustainable living, so I got a job at a local plant nursery. It turned out perfect because all the people I worked with were super chill and friendly and since I had been learning mostly about growing vegetables this gave me the chance to learn more about trees and flowering perennials and annuals. Louis, my manager in the perennial department, was really into teaching me everything he knows about the plants and very patient with me. I felt lucky that I got to work with him cause I learned so much in the short time that I worked there. Hopefully I can come back next summer and work there for a bit. Since it was only a seasonal job they let me go in the beginning of July, but I ended up meeting people who helped me find some landscaping jobs for the rest of the summer.

My first landscaping project, even though it was really small, was a little patch in front of Mr. Kaplan's house. I chose to put in mostly natives and tried to pick out some perennials that bloom in different times of the year. Hopefully it looks nice when all the things start blooming next year.

I met a kewl group of people who'd started a community garden off 29 in Fairfax and spent a bunch of time planting, watering and harvesting veggies out there. Also, just sitting around the fire pit at night cooking mostly from the gardens and chatting about "the problems of the world today" lol, great times. Every so often we'd do some landscaping when we realized we still needed some money to get by.


Also, through them we went out to a CSA garden in Catlett, VA to help out Roots, a friend. They had some of the tastiest green beans I'd ever had and mostly grew rare heirloom varieties of their tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, sunflowers, peppers...(I could go on all day...but I won't). They probably had 100 beds, about 50 ft long. Which meant weeding these organic beds took all day for 1 bed. After weeding, or even in the middle of it, we'd break for a dip in the river next to the house and just float in the calm water. Then we'd sit around the fire and throw together some ITOH sip and sometimes get to hear our Jamaican friend work on his new reggae beats. Such a chill place to just loose track of time :)
There's one of the tomato beds with basil that we weeded for 2 afternoons because there were so many weeds.







For the days that I spent more than 8 hrs indoors (including to sleep) I could feel it in my mood, I just wanted to be outside anywhere, in nature or the the garden. I don't know where this feeling has been hiding for all these years. I'm so addicted to getting all the Vitamin D I can, feeling the earth (not pavement) beneath me, and hearing nature all around me.

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." — Michelangelo Buonarroti

Mommy finally got to Israel!! Part 1

After all these years I finally got my mom to go to Israel. And my Aunt Ceil also came with her so it was an awesome trip.

They arrived the last day of the Eco-Israel program, February 10, 2011. So I just hopped on the train to the airport to pick them up and brought them back to the farm to meet the Ecos that were left, then went to sleep in Jerusalem to start our trip the next day. We stayed at Abraham Hostel right next to Mahane Yehuda Market and ended up staying right down the hall from Lauren and Jared, and Liz and Ryan! How crazy? How fun!

We spent the first 3 days in Jerusalem.
We started off in Mahane Yehuda market, which I don't think my mom or aunt liked very much because they aren't used to being bumped and pushed around in the market. But they did find a few interesting candies to buy.







Then we went to Hadassah Hospital to see the Chagall Windows but went to the Mt. Scopus hospital and saw the Tree of Life instead. Oops...







After that we went back to the farm to see it in the day time and do some cooking. I really wanted them to see where I'd been living for the past 5 months.
And all the vegetables we'd grown...
And Max in front of his prize purple bean pods, lol...









Next day, into the Old City!
We went into the Tower of David, which was pretty interesting to me because even after all the times I've been to Israel and even this time I was there for 5 months already, I'd never been to the Tower of David. It's an excavated area right by Jaffa gate that you can go up on to the walls of the tower and over look the old city to the Mt. of Olives and to the other parts of Jerusalem.

Aunt Ceil had Uncle Danny's little Eyor stuffed animal that he used to take with him when he went overseas because of the Army. So she got a picture of it kissing the walls inside the old city.

We walked around the old city all day. And went to the Kotel.








They even had a little extra energy to do some shopping and go out for dinner at night.










The 3rd day we did more history touristy stuff. Har Hertzl in the morning. And we even got to see the President from East Timor walking through the cemetery. and then walked over to Yad Vashem in the afternoon.


The exit to Yad Vashem overlooks the Jerusalem Hills.



And we found the right Hadassah Hospital
at Ein Kareem to see the Chigall Windows. My mom was happy at that.







The next day we left Jerusalem, at not so early in the morning, for the Dead Sea. On the way we stopped at an arab market in the desert and bought some little souvenirs.





First we went up to Masada, King Herod's fortress on top of the mountain by the Dead Sea, the Jews last stand against the Romans and where they eventually commit suicide before the Romans overtook them.


We took the car up and I walked the snake path back down.













And since we were right next to the Dead Sea we stopped to touch the water for a min.