Saturday was a definite highlight of my time in China so far. To be honest, I was a little nervous about meeting a Chinese family – my chopstick skills are average at best and my Mandarin needs a bit more practice – but the family were so kind and welcoming that I would happily have stayed with them for a whole week. It was great to meet them and they looked after us so well!
When we first arrived we gave the family the gifts we brought them from the UK. They were really grateful. Before lunch the family took us to a really nice park and garden a short walk away from where they live. The place was called the Yellow Dragon Cave park – inside the park there was an opera put on for the elderly people, a matchmaking temple, various ponds and some small caves & ponds – it was really cool and so nice of the family to take us there.
Matchmaking tree
The beautiful park!
Opera in the park
After visiting the park the family took us back to their home and we met the grandparents who had kindly cooked lunch for us. I got to try some longjing tea (famous tea in Hangzhou) as well as a bamboo dish, lotus root from the West Lake and lots of other Chinese dishes. They were all really nice. The mother didn’t really speak much English but her son spoke English really well. It was really nice to meet the family from Hangzhou and the language barrier by no means hindered our time with them.
The lovely lunch we had
In the afternoon the family took us to the Xixi wetland – a beautiful place right in Hangzhou, I am once again surprised at how many beautiful places there are so near to such a big city! It was so kind of them to take us there as it is somewhere we probably wouldn’t have been able to go without a car. There was also some small shops selling different foods and sweets which we got to try, one of them reminded me of pretzels but a little different! The mother was so generous and insisted on buying us gifts, which was so sweet of her so I have some yummy Chinese snacks to take back to the UK!
Some of the food we got to try
Xixi wetland
The family were so kind and asked us if we wanted to go out to dinner with them so we went to one of the big shopping malls in Hangzhou and had dinner at Grandma’s. They ordered so much food and told us the best dishes to try out that I don’t think any of us could physically have eaten everything! There was also a dish which in the UK would have been pudding, it was like a sweet bread with ice cream, but they brought it out first. It was really yummy and great to try, even if it came in a different order from at home.
Ice cream for starters!
Meeting the Chinese family will probably remain in my memory as one of my favourite days in China. They were such a lovely family and I loved spending the day with them.
Charis in China 