My long Chinese break included a week in Nanjing, celebrating the spring festival in my host father's village, some free time in Shanghai, and a week in Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a city not too far from Shanghai. We took a train to get there, and we met up with our NSLI-Y Beijing friends. We explored cultural and modern aspects of the city. For the first three days we stayed in dorms at 浙江大学 (Zhejiang University), but for the last three days we stayed with separate host families. My host family was very nice and friendly and had a son my age.
While in Hangzhou we toured West Lake, Leifeng Pagoda, a local high school and a few temples. Pretty much the whole time we were in Hangzhou it was snowing, so whenever we weren’t doing something, all of us could be found at the local coffee shop drinking coffee or hot chocolate.
With our host families we got to celebrate 元宵节 (lantern festival). My host family and I went to their second house way out in the countryside and had a nice dinner with the host family’s grandparents. We also went to a big lantern display.
I really enjoyed our group's time in Hangzhou and the long break, but sadly, all great things must come to an end. We packed up and headed back to Shanghai on the train. And now its time to get back to studying and working out in the school gym to burn off some of the weight we gained over the break.
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