沙拉in China! Fun times in Haining and Hangzhou with my college buddiesThe-part 2

       We spent another day to take a day trip to the 钱塘江(qiantang river), which is famous for its tides in Haining. Unfortunately, when we went it was very low, so it was a little bit disappointing, but we still had fun. Next to the river was old Haining, a place they call 盐官(yuanguan). There were many interesting shops, food stalls, and temples to see.

       On the way to the river, we stopped by the 海神庙(haishenmiao, sea god temple). It was my first time to visit a local god's temple. Most local gods were, at one time, real human people in history. They did great things in their life which were deserving of being immortalized as a god. According to my Chinese religion professor, starting from the Guomindan (Republic of China) era, local religion was banned in China, because it was seen as too superstitious. Before that time, religion wasn't really a word that was widely used in China, so the government needed to decide what was considered religion, and what was not, thus making local religion illegal. I was glad to see so many temples around. Apparently they have been allowed to survive under the name of Daoism, so around China all local religious practices were given the name Daoism.....at least that's how it was during the Republic of China. Ok! History lesson over. Let's see some beautiful pictures of the Sea God Temple.

this picture somehow reminds me of Mulan

so many dragons

      Finally, we had arrived at the qiantang river. Inside the gates there was a huge viewing platform, where all of the people would gather around to see the tide during the busy times around September, some possibly being swept away into the river by the tide. There was also a Buddhist temple with big statues of different Buddhas, Guanyin being the largest. There was also a traditional Chinese angry birds park (lolololol). 

In the end, I think the trip was well worth it, and we had a great time. 

      The next day Sarah went to my classes with me. It was great, I had the students prepare an airport travel skit to show her (though a lot of them were not very good, and totally did it wrong, but I was still proud!). That day was the last day of classes before summer break, so I let the students take a few pictures with us.

      Most of my classes have a little less than 50 students, so that's not all of them. Just a few of them wanted to take pictures.

      During the weekend we traveled to Hangzhou, and met up with another friend from Ball State, Yinglu. We ate dinner together the first night, and we hung out at a music bar under Hui's company. We also had lunch together on the Saturday, and we had one traditional Hangzhou food called 叫花鸡 (beggar's chicken). 

      That afternoon I took Sarah to the zoo to see some PANDAS, and they were awake. It was so great. I just love looking at pandas. They are so fluffy I just want to jump through the glass and give them a big hug!

      On Sunday we went around West Lake with Hui, and he really enjoyed hanging out with us girls (I think? haha). We just went around taking different pictures, chatting, and having fun. For dinner we went to one of West Lake's famous restaurants that you have to wait more than an hour to get in called 绿茶(green tea). The food there was really great. I would totally do it again!

Overall it was a great time. I hope Sarah had a great time traveling through China, and I hope she will come back and visit us again. I had a few videos to stick into this blog as well, so I will get those up after I find some kind of video editor, so I can fix up the embarrassing commentary. Until them I will sign out and get ready to put up a blog about my super fun summer job!