Settling into Life in Hangzhou

So I'm not certain exactly how my posts are ending up, but let me know - someone :). Apparently blogger is blocked here in China, but I have been able to access the area where I write my posts, I just can't view them. So hopefully they are turning out all right.
I think I'm finally getting settled into life here in Hangzhou. I've finally got my schedule figured out, and I'm no longer feeling so lost in the city. The course schedule is pretty intense - classes from 9AM to 9PM Monday to Friday with a couple breaks in between for lunch and dinner, but at least its not as crazy as my 8AM-midnight schedule back in Iowa:). I have a strong feeling (based on my first weeks exprience) that most of my time is going to be spent studying or in class, but the nice thing part is that no matter where I go it's an opportunity to learn and practice the language.

As I said above I am beginning to feel a little bit more comfortable making my way around the city, and the attached photo is a view from my walk back from the store. It was about the most open spot that I could find in order to actually take a picture of something more than the building across the street! Hangzhou truly is a beautiful city. It's hard to get any grasp of its beauty through the pictures, but nearly every square inch of ground in the area I am staying is groomed to perfection, and we're not even in the "upper class" part of town. I have been overwhelmingly surprised with both the beauty, and development here in Hangzhou. As I've learned, Hangzhou is one of the most wealthy cities in China, and it definitely shows - the downtown Bentley, Mercedes, and Rolls-Royce dealerships give somewhat of an inclination of what I'm talking about! Cutting a long story short - Hangzhou is beautiful!

Perhaps the biggest scenic draw in Hangzhou is West Lake (西湖). It's in the middle of the city, and gardened immaculately - it's amazing. This past Saturday we (my classmates and I) had the opportunity to go to a performance there called "Impressions of West Lake" (印象西湖). It was a great performance - they have a stage set up just underneath the water and it looked like the performers were walking on water. It was at nighttime and they had an amazing light display at the same time. I took several photos and a couple of movie clips, some of which I've attached - hopefully they work, let me know if they don't!

This first one is from one of the scenes that was performed "out" of the water - however the little house that they are all in was actually a boat as well - floating and moving around out on the lake. The second video clip shows the two main characters under the water. In the middle of the pay they raised up the huge misting triangular structure that you see - it was quite the show!

On Sunday, I was able to make my way to church here in Hangzhou for the first time. The city of Hangzhou is actually in the Shanghai Branch - so that is where the church building is, but since it is so far to Shanghai, there are a group of church members that meet in one of their homes every Sunday. There were nine of us (plus three kids), which made for a quaint get together, but it was great. I managed to learn the entire congregations names in a day :). There is quite the group of people - a few couples who are here for work, and one lady who is here in Hangzhou for a couple of weeks. She runs an orphanag in Xi'an, and is here for a couple of weeks for the surgery of a new baby she's picking up. She is quite the amazing individual. She has a blog and website set up if anyway wanted to look more into it, I found her work and efforts to be a modern day working of miracles. her blog is chinesestarfish.blogspot.com and her website is www.chinesestarfish.org. During one of my breaks from school I may try and take a trip out to visit her.
As for the coming days - I've got a lot of class time and study ahead of me, but I've got a lot to learn. We actually get class off on Friday as well - since we'll be traveling as a group this coming weekend to Nanjing and Suzhou. It'll be a great opportunity to get out and see some more of China. I think I've spent to much time with my head in books studying. Until next time - - -

Best,

Brody