I'm pretty sure any doctor would have told me that to cure my depression/homesickness/friendlessness I should drink until my eyeballs start swimming in their sockets. And the place to do this? Hangzhou!
In case you do not remember, half of the student in my program are in Shanghai and the other half are in Hangzhou, a small city of eight million people about 120 miles (now only a 40 minute train ride!) south of Shanghai. There countryfolk are nice, friendly, and can drink anyone under the table on a nightly basis.
I got the idea to go to Hangzhou while I was having one of those crying in the bathroom moments that Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love) taught me that they were acceptable. EG our lives are connected. Turns out a few co-workers already had plans to go and since it was many people's last weekend in China, it was a party.
I was proud of myself for going to the gym in the morning before my 11am train. 40 minutes later we were in Hangzhou and heading out for lunch. I ate green curry... then threw it up in the bathroom of a massage parlor. My body is rejecting Asian culture. My body got another beating from some small Chinese masseuse. We then killed time watching How I Met Your Mother and then it was off to all-you-can-eat-all-you-can-drink (kill me now) Teppanyaki followed by a bar. Maybe my body was rejecting Asian food again, or maybe it was that the sake was FAKE because everything in China is FAKE but due to unfortunate circumstances, my party was cut short around 2 am. I was suppose to go on a hike this morning but there's no way that could have happened so I was lucky that it was raining (it has been raining all month).
It was nice to get out of town. I felt refreshed, like I went on an actual vacation.
And then I come home :( back to being ignored and feeling unwelcome in my own home. Just one more week than off to Russia.
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