My first typhoon.

Last Monday I returned to Hangzhou after a week long vacation during Typhoon Fitow. The typhoon affected over three million people in Zhejiang province and caused economic damage of over $330 million. I flew into Shanghai Monday morning and had to run a few errands in the city before heading back to Hangzhou. The rain was pretty heavy and I was getting texts from my friends about the storm, but didn’t realize the severity of the situation. I got on a 3 o’clock train luckily (apparently all trains had been canceled the night before), I arrived in Hangzhou a little after 4pm. From the train station it takes me thirty minutes by cab to get home. But under these circumstances it took me over four hours to get home. There were points throughout the four hour trek that I almost broke down in tears, in particular the multiple times cars drove by and I was hit with a tidal wave of water. I was so relieved to make it home, only for the power to go out not long after I made it home. The following day our water was out for a few hours. Which is ironic because there was so much in the streets? Schools were closed and streets were still rivers for a day or two after the rain stopped. It was actually quite an experience. So many shops and restaurants are still shut down because of water damage which is quite sad.

Anyway, let’s back up to happier times. The last few weeks have been great. All of my friends that spent the summer home in the US are back in Hangzhou. We celebrated Mid Autumn Festival at the end of September. This is the day that the moon is its fullest and brightest according to the Chinese calendar. On of my students invited me to celebrate with her family. I have taken a vow being here that I cannot turn down any authentic Chinese experiences. My student is 14 years old and so darling and her family is wonderful. They treat me so well (bringing me coffee, gifts, taking me to dinner), and I consider them my “Chinese family”. The holiday was great.  There were 16 people at the dinner table and only my student and her 17-year-old cousin could speak any English. It was a lot of smiling and nodding… and beer. I’m constantly being encouraged by Chinese men to drink with them.

The following week we celebrated National Day. This was a seven-day holiday, so my friend Mecah, her boyfriend Eduardo and I decided we should take advantage of the time and go on a trip. We considered many different countries in Southeast Asia but eventually settled for the cheapest fight: Jakarta, Indonesia. The reason our flight was so inexpensive was because we had almost full day layovers there and back. But we considered this a bonus, a chance to see more cities in China!

We flew out of Shanghai Monday evening and got into Fuzhou late at night. Fuzhou is a beach city in South Eastern China. There really isn’t much to say about Fuzhou except that there is a beach; nothing like the beaches of Newport however. We found a private cab to take us to the beach. The first thing he asked us was where we were from and Eduardo responded “Ecuador”.  The chances of what happened next are probably around 1 in 4 million. I just don’t think there are any other Chinese men from the small town of Fuzhou that had lived in Ecuador for ten years! Eduardo and this man continued the rest of the afternoon speaking in Spanish; he even came to the beach with us, drove us back to our hotel and refused to let us pay him.

We flew into Jakarta late that night. In the morning we did a little touring in Central Jakarta before we boarded an overnight train. Jakarta was nice to see, but not a place I would visit again. It reminded me a bit of Manila in that you can’t walk anywhere, it's a bit dirty, and the only thing to do is go to malls. I’m just not a big fan of the “mall culture”. It was however so wonderful to just be in Indonesia. The people were so kind and the majority of people spoke English. Our overnight train took us to Jogjakarta, a small town in Java, Indonesia. It’s known as the center of classical Javanese culture. The city is also extremely close to the world famous Borobudur and Prambanan temples. Visiting the temples was definitely my favorite part of our trip. These structures were just breathtaking.

After a day and a half we returned to Jakarta via overnight train. The overnight train was pretty awful in that it was almost impossible to sleep due to the bright lights, and loud bumpy ride. We returned to Jakarta before 4am so we went to our hotel and caught up on some sleep. We had an enjoyable day just relaxing at the hotel. That evening we met up with one of my old regulars from Malarky’s who just happened to have moved to Jakarta about a month ago to practice Chiropractics. We had a great night with him, then flew to Xiamen, China early the next day.

Xiamen is a small somewhat touristy Chinese city. It, like Fuzhou, is on the water however there was a lot more to do. Xiamen has a cute Island to visit similar to Catalina. I can’t say it was as enjoyable as Catalina though due to all the Chinese people. We did however find a "California Cuisine" restaurant to finish our trip! We flew out super early the next morning. Back to reality.