Badminton, Bike Riding, and Karoake (Tuesday-Thursday)

So I have a few days of updates to catch up on, so I'll try to keep this short since my posts are generally long anyway hahaha. 

Tuesday, June 19th

So my second day here in China was Tuesday. Most of the day was uneventful, my sister and I got lots of sleep and just lounged around and whatnot. It was awesome. By far the most interesting part of the day came around 5:45 pm, when we headed to badminton with my dad's co-worker/assistant. Apparently his work people reserve four courts at a school in Hangzhou, and so my sister, Viola (the assistant), and I played with other people from my dad's work for about 3 hours. 

Now it's been around two years since I've really played badminton. I was the assistant coach to the girls' team in high school since we didn't have a boys' team and it was really the only way to play while I was in high school then. It's definitely the sport I'm the best at and I love it. My freshman and sophomore years of college I played badminton a decent amount but then frisbee took over my last two years of college.

With that in mind, I'm apparently still pretty good. I've forgotten a lot, but after about 30-45 minutes of playing I was really getting back into it again. We played only doubles due to the small number of courts and high numbers of people there, probably about 30 people or so for six courts (the other two courts I assume were reserved by other people or were just for whoever showed up). It was king of the court style and people constantly swapped doubles partners too. 

One thing to understand about China is that badminton is huge here. I mean HUGE. Basically just swap out every basketball court you see in the U.S. for a badminton court that could be indoors or outdoors, and you get the idea. In terms of the national sport, it's only matched by table tennis. The point is, everyone plays and nearly everyone is above a certain threshold of good. 

That being said, I kept up, especially when I had a decent partner. This isn't me trying to place the blame on other people if I did badly, don't get me wrong I was the weak point on almost all of the doubles teams I was on. However the most important part of doubles is team synergy. You have to know when you're covering your partner and when they're covering you. Unspoken communication is crucial if you want to win, as is spoken communication. Sometimes you'll be yelling to you partner to get a birdie but 95% of the time you shouldn't even need to. If I can reach it, my partner should know. If my partner can't reach the birdie, I should already be moving there. This is why doubles can be both incredibly frustrating and incredibly rewarding. Working in sync with another person feels awesome, flowing between covering weak spots and attacking opponents. But when you and your partner don't cover each other well and move out of sync it's like carrying an unpleasant taste around on your mouth. 

But yeah, I kept up, even won a bunch of games (definitely not the majority though). My dad's co-workers were surprised, my dad was surprised, my sister was surprised, but I was definitely the most surprised. This is another example of how I'm terrible at working out but am great at sports. I believe this is because simply going to the gym has goals that are simply too intangible for me, but winning, oh winning I definitely get. The goals in all sports can be fairly simple, and badminton is one I definitely understand. 

So a completely soaked shirt later (I'm bringing a towel next time) we get back home and I take a shower and pretty much just head back to bed.

Wednesday, June 20th

Now on Wednesday we climbed a mountain. It was painfully humid, but we did it anyway. My dad lives in what would be considered a suburb of Hangzhou, across a river that separates the main part of the city from the "suburb" part. Now suburbs in Hangzhou are pretty much just waaaaay more apartment complexes in a small area as opposed to all the other things you see in a city. There aren't really any houses, and getting to the city is as easy as taking a bridge to cross the river. It's essentially a five minute drive to get into the city. 

So it was about 5 km (3 miles) to climb up one side and down the other. It's important to note that "climbing a mountain" in most of China just means taking a stone path. This particular mountain had lots of green tea bushes growing on the sides and was very pretty. The climb was also difficult for about a kilometer or so because the steps were angled at about 45 degrees. My dad had to stop like 50 times before we got to the top, but he's also nearly 60 years old. It was a tough climb, and my legs were getting rather gelatinous by the time were at the bottom of the other side of the mountain. 

You're probably wondering what the name of this mountain is. I have no idea. Neither does my dad. Helpful I know. The point it, it's the most difficult climb around here he lives, so be impressed and all that shit. Monday is going to be a much harder climb, we're going to the Yellow Mountain, the most famous mountain in China. If you've ever seen the end of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, you've seen the Yellow Mountain before. (also, the link is to my favorite fight scene from that movie, which is also my favorite fight scene of all time. It does not actually show the Yellow Mountain though n_n)

Thursday, June 21st

Now on Thursday we did a decent amount. We went to a well known lake in Hanzghou and biked/walked around it with one of the interns from my dad's company. She was super nice and was a grad student in cinematography of all things. My dad works for Nokia Siemens, hence our surprise when we found out what her graduate studies were in. (we being my sister and I) But we talked and walked and biked a bit too which I really enjoyed. She looks kind of like a Chinese Ellie Kemper but with a slightly more round face. Yes, she was cute. She was also only 25 but that's not the point, quiet all of you. 

After that my sister and I went to a restaurant to meet up with my dad, Viola, another co-worker of my dad's that lives in his apartment building named Lin, and another co-worker named Leo. We had hot pot for dinner and it was delicious as always. For those of you too lazy to even click the link, hot pot is basically just a pot with hot broth in it and you add thinly sliced meat such as beef or pork, as well as veggies and whanot to it. There's a flame under the hot pot to keep the temp of the broth high and make sure your meat cooks and all that. I also had some Chinese beer, which was pretty much what I expected. The Chinese prefer lighter beers, so I wasn't blown away or anything, but I still love beer so I can't really complain. 

After a delicious dinner we headed to karaoke. The only problem with karoake in China is that while there are lots of English songs, none of them are things I would want to sing. It was either lots of rap/hip hop, or much much older stuff, or Celine Dion. They'll have 750 "English" songs, but the pool of songs I'll actually know will be more like 200 songs, and of those I'm not gonna sing, "My Heart Will Go On" or all of the damn Lady Gaga they have. Stupid Lady Gaga. But it was still a lot of fun, plus Leo and Viola both have great singing voices. I even got in American Pie for a mini-NRP Sing-Along. Miss you Nerps a lot <3

So yeah that's been a quicker than usual update of the past few days for me. Those of you who have managed to read all of that/just skipped to the end here will be rewarded with a few random things I have seen/discovered/re-remembered from the past few days. 

-There are two transformer boxes (electrical boxes) on the sidewalk a few blocks from my dad's place, and they're painted so one is Spongebob and the other is Mario jumping to hit a block

-China is fascinatingly dirty. Even super nice restaurants that are clean and sanitary and shit have super dirty parts, such as just the windows outside. I had forgotten about this. 

-No one uses dryers for their clothes, they just hang them

-cab drivers here make fairly good money, about the same amount as a college grad would in a normal day job in Hangzhou (as in, college grads living here in Hangzhou, not college grads that are living in the states), which is approx 2000 RMB a month  and exchange rate is currently ~6.36 RMB to $1, so ~$314 a month. However they also work 12 hours a day

-Karaoke is huge here. It's basically where all the young people go to hang out with their friends, think of it like bars in the U.S. where lots of young kids go to drink and hang out with peeps, but older folks do too

-Everyone smokes almost everywhere. It's very annoying. 

-Remember that card game I was talking about that I played on Monday that I mentioned in my first blog post? Well they have the equivalency of a poker channel for that game. They show everyone's hands and analyze them and shit, it's pretty cool. The only big difference is that don't show the people playing because they're just sitting at computers playing. Still, it's pretty interesting

Alrighty, that's my update for now. Tonight we're gonna hit up the bar street, tomorrow we're probably gonna climb another mountain, perhaps go karaoke-ing again, and hopefully Sunday I can play badminton again. Monday we head out for Yellow Mountain, and we'll be there til Thursday. I dunno if I'll be able to update much between Monday and Thursday, but I'll do my best. 

Lates!