HangZhou

a Row 5 affair!

have I ever mentioned the Row 5 soon to be Row 6 to you previously? Probably not since it only started a few days ago. So allow me to introduce to you the idea of the Row 5 soon to be Row 6 as well as its origins.

Here in Shanghai, and even back then in Rosario, our GBF group has always had the Row 4 from the Shanghai ban. This mainly consists of Allan, Rain, Pinky, and Eds. Back then and even here in Shanghai, they were always together in going out. This pretty much continued here where they would often go out together. Thus, the trademark, "Row 4".

A couple of nights ago we hanged out in Helen's to watch the World Cup. This was an everybody is invited affair since people from GBF also performed to promote the Filipino Day. So I went, lots of people went. And this was where I found myself seated with the members of Row 5: RG, Anton, Sigh, FRed, and yours truly (ME). The same group who went to HAngZhou yesterday. Why we are Row 5? I'll explain on a separate blog. BUt definitely not because of Row 4. Pretty far, actually.

So, HangZhou.

Lots of people have already been to HangZhou. At first we were still in doubt if we were to go but since most of them said that it was not to be missed, we decided to go. Since people now never go on big groups like what happened in our SuZhou, there were lots of groups who went on different dates. The only question there left was when we were going. Then one day RG called me up to ask me if we can go with him and Fred in their HangZhou so it won't seem like they were on a date. So I said okay. After all, I had other plans the day my roommate, Cheng, was supposed to go. A few days after and RG was also able to invite Sigh. So that you get the Row 5 all under one trip.

RG bought tickets the time we were in Beijing. So I learned that we were to depart Shanghai at 11:50AM, arrive in HangZhou after two hours and depart HangZHou for Shanghai at 8:50 in the evening. See, if we can, we try as much to avoid overnight trips.

So we went yesterday. It was rainy, yes. But still okay. At least it was not the sunny-that-makes-you-sticky weather that we really hated. Coz that was the weather when we had our field trip the day before we went to HangZhou.

Since it was raining, and a little bit foggy when we arrived at the West LAke, we decided to go up the Pagoda first. But since we got tired half-way, we had a detour and decided to chill first at the coffee shop on top of the hill a few steps before you arrive at the Pagoda. And since the owner was very kind as well as the waitresses, we decided to go full blast on chilling first, get some coffee, and perhaps have a little "chika" session. Then we decided to go up the Pagoda.

The Pagoda was nice even when it was raining. So we took pictures and enjoyed the view of the West Lake. Then we went down and walked to the West Lake. At the West Lake, we found dry chairs and sat first for a while to enjoy the calming and relaxing view. This was where we met the strangest stranger ever while we were seated in one of the benches along the Lake. Why strange? check this out:

So she comes to us asking, "可以说中文吗？“
shocked, we said, "什么？“
Stranger says, "可以问一下？“
so we say, "可以。“
At this point she speaks English and says (addressed to me, Sigh, and Anton),
“Among these two, who is your girlfriend?"
So Anton, still shocked, said “没有。”
RG, who at this point came closer already goes on to say,
“她们都是好朋友。”
Then she gave us a grumpy face and started walking away in a tantrum-ish manner.
Weird? Oh, tell me more about it. LOL.
Conclusion: baka type ka Anton!!

So we continued walking to go look for QingHeFang, the cultural street where Cheng asked me to buy something for her. So we rode a taxi since we didn't have much time.

Upon arriving at QingHeFang, we decided to walk around the street and check out the stuff. Indeed, this was a cultural street. These streets characterizes China so much. With stores selling mopit brushes and Chinese calligraphy as well as keychains where they can engrave your names or what-nots. This is among the things I really love about China. Plus, there was a show I missed because I was looking for the store Cheng said. But it was okay. I really enjoyed the street.

Before going home, we decided to grab something for dinner. We ended up in this resto selling CHinese dishes that were, according to them, the best. We tried the specialty dish in HangZhou called West Lake fish. It was delish. Plus, this was one of those rare times we had seafood for dinner. After dinner, we then decided to go back to the Railway Station to catch our 8:50 train to Shanghai. We were early, hooray! But still ended our trip running for the trains! The Shanghai Metro.

You see, in the morning, we arrived at the station late because of me. When we arrived we thought we had time so we bought KFC in the station. Then when me and Anton decided to look for our boarding gate, we learned that our gate was still below and not on the floor we were in. And that we still had to go out of the station and go out. At this time, we only had 20 minutes before our train was to depart for HangZhou. So we ran and we ran until we found the boarding gate. Just in time, the people were lining up to board. At night, we decided to end the day running for the Metro because Shanghai Nan is 90RMB away from us, that's an hour and 18 stops in the Metro. Plus, the cost is less also since Metro is just 5RMB plus our tuk-tuk to the dorm.

So that now, I once again found myself here in my room, blogging, and I am really late for class! How very Row 5!