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Arrival in Hangzhou

 I arrived in Hangzhou, to find that a Chinese girl, around my age, called YoYo would pick me up and take me to the hotel via taxi. She explained that she just started with the company after moving from her hometown in Shenzhen and was surprised to find that she was so far away from home. Her job was trying to sell courses to passersby, basically aggressive marketing, which is common in China-to coax people in from the street to just take an interest in the courses. 

I told her I was interested in learning to speak Chinese, and said she was happy to be my 'Chinese teacher'. She started Lesson 1 immediately and upon entering the hotel she tried to get me to ask to checkin, which I don't think I was really any good at. She escorted me to the hotel, which wasn't the Holiday Inn, but it had a bed, looking over a fairly dodgy looking alleyway with the odd e-bike passing through, as they collected breakfast/lunch from the makeshift 'baozi' kiosk.  

Yoyo gave me five minutes to put my things in the room, before saying that she would take me on a tour of the area in Hangzhou. She at first took me to a restaurant just below the shopping mall Yingtai and bought dumplings and noodles. I was still a novice at using chopsticks, despite being taught by some other more senior EF employees in Shanghai, YoYo had to ask the 'fuwuyuan' to embarrassingly dig out a knife and fork, which took them around 10 minutes to find. I really was beginning to develop a love of dumplings, after trying Yang's dumplings in Shanghai, I had decided that I loved exploring Chinese cuisine. 

After, she showed me Westlake, which looked more like a resort. Disappointingly man-made, I was looking forward to looking around the lake on my days off. We continued to the Song Dynasty street where I could see various traditional clothing shops with Chippao's, while turning to the right there was shops and outside kiosks for green tea, the chime of the silversmith tapping the silver to make bracelets and rings. An elderly Chinese lady running one of the green tea shops invited us in to sample some of the green tea, so we politely sat down, while YoYo chatted in Chinese, and then continued on our way. I asked how much it was, but YoYo replied that it was 'free', and left, being surprised by the generosity and 'welcoming' nature of the locals.  


Figure 1: Hangzhou West Lake


I asked YoYo about my future manager, whom I wasn't sure was male or female, as they were known as 'Andrea' which in the UK could be either gender. Though I deduced from people at EF that it was 'He', and I was told he was a 'little eccentric', but I had no idea what that meant, or whether it was a good thing or bad thing. YoYo told me, Andrea, or Andy as he was known had been 'very worried' about me, perhaps this was because I didn't have Wechat, or maybe she was being over-dramatic. He had a Chinese wife, a four year old daughter and had been in China for 8 years already after coming here to study Chinese language. YoYo explained that he wanted to make it permanent living in China meaning that he was applying for a green card. I was surprised that someone wanted to have permanent status in China, and was both nervous and looking forward to meeting him. 

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