We are back in the USA now. Stop by San Diego anytime for a cup of 龙井 tea and a lesson in how to play 象棋.

We are a bit unusual in China, especially in Hangzhou (which is not really a mainstream stop for Western tourists). Wherever we go, we can always tell when people are talking about us, because we hear one of two things.

One is discussion of what country we are from. We hear people speculating about YingGuo 英国 (England), MeiGuo 美国 (USA), and DeGuo 德国 (Germany).

We got a little behind on posting, so finally, here is Tim’s version of 7/23. Also I updated his birthday 7/29 (farther down in our blog).

This weekend we went on a tour bus about 2 hours away to Qian Dao Hu (千岛湖), which means “Thousand Island Lake.” This is one of the rare cases in which the Chinese name is actually understated, because the lake is approximately the area of Singapore and has 3107 islands in it.

That night, we went to dinner at a local restaurant, and happened to meet up with Zhu Ba Jie, 猪八戒, the Pig of many Chinese legends. For example, our travel companion XiaoFei 小飞 told us this story about 猪八戒 and the Monkey King 孙悟空 (Sun Wu Kong).

One thing about China that surprises American visitors is the range of prices, even within a small area. For example, on our block there are: (1) a family restaurant in an alley, and; (2) a Starbuck’s. They aren’t more than 100 meters apart. At the family restaurant, Tim and I both at dinner last week for a total of 6元, which is about $0.90 USD. A few days later, we went to the Starbuck’s and had drinks and played chess, and it cost us 62元 ($9.30) for two drinks.

Chinese food can be OK as an adventure, but every once in a while we need some actual food, like the kind intended for eating (in other words -- Mexican). Thankfully, we discovered "Panchos", the only (as far as we know) Mexican restaurant in Hangzhou. The rice is a little weird, and the waiters don't speak Spanish. But, by going there once a week, we can survive. Gracias a Dios por Panchos!

Tim did calligraphy today with his teacher. In the photo below, he practiced his name, 马金魏. The “Ma” 马 part is based on my work name, which is meant to sound like “Mark”. But since it is in the family name position, then that has to be Tim’s Chinese family name too. The “Jin Wei” 金魏 part sounds a little like Tim Wile.

The name 魏 is normally a surname, not a given name. But Tim’s middle name is normally a surname in English too, so it kind of makes sense. Right?

Well, today is my birthday. I got home late from work, and when I did Tim gave me a piece of cake.

Also he gave me a gift – an English translation of “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” (三国演义). This was written by Luo Guanzhong 罗贯中 in about 1320, depicting events around the collapse of the Han dynasty in about 220 A.D.

Today we went to an amusement park near Hangzhou called 杭州乐园. First we ate lunch at a restaurant inside the park. As usual, we got an all-Chinese menu, and had no idea what it was, so we just pointed to a random item and hoped it was not dog eyeballs with monkey snot sauce (although we wouldn’t know if it were that, so I guess it doesn’t matter).

This restaurant had something that made us laugh a little. Look at the napkin dispenser.

Mostly we went shopping today. Afterwards, we went to a teahouse, and had some snacks and tea. The waiters there were experts in a kind of performance combining martial arts and tea-pouring. They use tea kettles with very long spouts and spin them around kung-fu style, using centifugal force to always keep the water in the kettle. They then suddenly stop on some weird position and let the water shoot out into the cup….then back to more spinning.