THE Lowly Peon

i think i found it! 
19 October 2009, 11:12am

after having given up for the last several months, i think i've finally found the hangzhou that i fell in love with back in the spring of 2008. oddly enough, it's all due to the economic crisis the world has been fretting about while china's been holding its head up higher and higher.

as i always do, i'll start this rant with a little narrative.

today was a pretty good day. busy, which meant it passed by quickly. for some reason, i slept about nine hours last night (i could barely keep my eyes open passed 10), so i felt pretty good anyway. then today after the company bus dropped me off, there were no public bikes in sight. and what's worse is that there were already four people waiting!

so i decided to walk.

i decided to kind of make a night of it. not too long ago, i went out with a buddy of mine at a restaurant in the cutesy part of hangzhou, complete with tacky "traditional" chinese stuff, really pretty buildings and art, and, of course, zillions of people. except while we were there, i noticed that it had cleaned up a bit. and, even more, i noticed that there was a street intersecting it that i'd never seen before. so i thought i'd check it out.

i walked down this street and it was great. it reminded me of lijiang, the cute small city in yunnan province that i visited years back. there was even a small little canal, like in freiberg germany, along side the walking path. best part: no cars allowed, and police at any entrance to actually enforce it. in other words: heaven.

it'll still be a while, i think, til all the shops fill in. most of them now are either huge fancy chains or small noodle shops (no complaints there!), but i assume soon there'll be lots of interesting shops and tea houses and such. of course all tourist oriented, but, as a weird white guy, i'm okay with that.

i got to the end of the road and decided i'd go visit my friend xiao li at the milktea place. it's been months since i've seen her, and even longer since i've gotten milk tea and those old egg pancakes i used to get.

she was gone when i got there, but that turned out to be because she was macking her boyfriend in the attic of the shop. she came down shortly after i texted her, and we chatted. it was a lot of fun. (though i can't believe i actually ate those egg pancake things every day. so oily! the ones my old pancake lady made were so much better. may her shop rest in peace.)

and the weather is great!

what a great day! thanks, shuffle god, for reminding me how great hangzhou can be!