Halloween in Hangzhou

Well, It’s Halloween time! Halloween isn’t highly celebrated here in China. But our school not only focuses on the English language, but also customs and traditions of the Western world. The school I work at has many different locations. It is becoming a very reputable school in China. The school closest to West Lake (the gorgeous lake in Hangzhou) held a Halloween party yesterday. They asked me to come and be a part of the party. My role was to explaining to the kids what Trick-or-Treating is and why we carve pumpkins. It was a riveting lesson, if you ever need to know more about Trick-or-Treating or begging for candy just let me know. We sang a little song and played some games. A couple of the kids also performed little skits/dances. Let’s get real, little Asian babies dressed up in costumes? What could be better? They were so damn cute. I dressed up as a slutty nurse, and explained to them that as you get older you dress in the costumes you did as a kid, you just have to make it slutty.

After the Halloween party I hopped on a bike and decided to ride home. The lake was recently recognized as a World Heritage Site. My brother and I tried to see as many as we could when we biked in Europe for three months. I was in such a beautiful part of the city and the weather was great, so I enjoyed a leisurely bike ride home. Monday will be my first day off since I arrived. I’m going to go sign up at the gym close to my house and spend the day biking around and getting comfortable with my surroundings. Another important job will be learning the bus routes! Once we have Internet in our apartment I can use Google maps to help me get around. I still feel very lost most of the time. I miss having the Maps application on my phone! In the states I always knew where I was, even when I was lost. Being lost here… I’m just lost. It’s like moving to New York City only not being able to read any signs or communicate with anyone.

Have I mentioned that Hangzhou is the city with the largest bike share community?  It’s pretty rad. “Launched in 2008, the Hangzhou Public Bicycle program in China is the largest bicycle sharing system in the world, with around 61,000 bicycles and over 2,400 stations” thanks Wikipedia (how did we know anything before Wikipedia?)