Liangzhu Museum.

Saturday 22 March, 2014 

¥13.00         Lunch (Uni Restaurant)
¥35.00         Cake and Coffee (Peet's)
¥4.80           Walmart (All I do is walk in and play piano)
¥50.00         Dinner  (Chicken hotpot!)
¥38.00         KTV
¥24.00         4 Bottles of water

Sunday 23 March, 2014 

¥3.00           Breakfast (Uni Restaurant)
¥12.50         Coffee
¥12.00         Lunch
¥8.00           Fruit 
¥320.00       Gift (Silk scarf for mum's birthday) 

Total: ¥520.30.00 ($93.40)

Weekly Total: ¥1007.30 ($180.85) <This is really way over my budget of $100 a week..>

Total Spend: ¥15984.30 ($3040.70 AUD)

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On Sunday I met up again with my family friend. I had asked her earlier in the week where the best place to get genuine silk products is, and she ended up offering me to take me out another day around Hangzhou.

Firstly I went to a shop called HSDP Silk, which is apparently one of two most trusted silk brands in Hangzhou.

Afterwards we (me, aunt, her daughter, her husband) went a bit out of Hangzhou to Yuhang to see the Liangzhu Culture Museum. 

Inside the museum. The water sculptures are meant to represent Yu Bi (Jade discs)

The entry into the museum.

Outside the museum.. but that's not the museum.

A lot of urban landscaping went into the surroundings in this newly developed area.

 

Inside was a whole area dedicated to recreating the lifestyle of the historical Liangzhu culture.

There were also informative lessons on the history of characters which was interesting.

But my favourite part of the museum was definitely seeing the chinese paintings. My elective classes have been such a downer that seeing these really gave me hope and inspiration to pick up my mao bi and try to do some painting in the local style here.

One of my favourite pieces.

 After the museum my family friends again treated me to dinner. We went to another famous restaurant which has been established for over 100 years.

Dinner at 5:30pm.. the local dinner time here.

 

They ordered so much food again.. this is only for four people! I know it must be something to do with status/mianzi (face), but still it seems pretty wasteful.

Lotus Root in honey syrup (or what tastes like it). This wasn't too sweet, so it was actually enjoyable. This is a Hangzhou-an speciality.

Deep fried stinky tofu. It was quite nice and fragrant to eat, but smelly as always to the nose. The chilli sauce helped (but I love chilli with anything so maybe that's just me)

Xiao Long Bao

Also another Hangzhou-an Speciality, these are baby bamboo stalks. They are really nice and fresh - definitely one of my favourites!

Finally this is called "Cat's ears". This is an example of why you shouldn't shy away from dodgy sounding foods on Chinese menus. Its actually made of plain flour, and rolled so that it looks like a cat's ear.

- - -

So I sent my mother her present on Tuesday thinking it wouldn't arrive by Saturday, but it arrived on the Friday! The postage was hella expensive but it arrived in two days, that's pretty amazing. And I'm super pleased! Definitely can recommend EMS in China.