Hangzhou!

Hello from Hangzhou! We apologize for not getting to post much about Xi'an, but we'll post pictures of it as soon as we're home. This morning, we took a short flight from Xi'an to Hangzhou, and began our tour of Hangzhou shortly after. The weather in Southern China is extremely humid, and it was raining very hard throughout most of the day. First, we visited the old house of a famous Chinese entrepreneur. After touring the house with our guide, we received some free time to roam around by ourselves. Several of us found a small man made cave system with a small pond inside. We went on a little adventure through the caves with Wu 老师's daughter, Nicole.

After visiting the house, we drove out to the Mei Jia Wu Tea Village. We got to drive through vast fields and terraces where a huge amount of green tea is grown. Hangzhou is the most well-known city for tea in China, and the Mei Jia Wu tea is some of the very best. We learned how tea is grown and prepared, and then we went to a tasting and demonstration. We sampled some high quality green tea, and learned all about its health benefits and use in daily life.

We ended the day with a casual dinner near the Tea Village, and returned to the hotel where we met Wu 老师's mother and father (爸爸妈妈)! We also got to meet one of Wu 老师's friends from Evanston who often went to her tea shop. She got him interested in Chinese, and he is now working in Hangzhou!

It was a long day, but we're having an incredible time and we're excited for our last few days in China. Goodnight!