A Very Full Day

On Friday, we were taken... everywhere. Or at least that's what it felt like. We were up and ready to hit the road at 8am, and did not return until 10pm. We were being hosted, in absentia, by the mayor of the city of Jinhua, a personal friend of Qian's, and he had a very full day lined up for us. He sent an official city government bus to pick us up.

Our first stop was a preserved village. People still live there, but all of the buildings have been preserved or restored to the way they were when the founding family of the village lived there, and supposedly the people living there have reverted to the ancient way of life as well. The city is laid out on a spoked wheel pattern, which looks quite logical when seen painted as a map on the wall, but when walking through it seems more like a maze. The founding family was known for turning out famous apothecaries and physicians, and reportedly to this day you can walk into any traditional medicine pharmacy in the country and ask for a person by that family name. The head of the family was particularly famous for laying down some strict guidelines for the family descendants to follow, which then all other families of the time adopted (with some modifications) as well. We walked past beans and herbs being dried in the sun on walls and walks, people washing their clothes in the ponds, through the family's gathering pavilion and private meeting room, up to their divination area where some people could have their fortunes told, and through a beautifully landscaped garden billed as China's earliest pharmacy.

After yet another huge lunch, we went to our next stop, Double Dragon Cave. On approaching the cave, the first thing I noticed was that there was truly cool air hitting me. Aaaaahhhhh. At the entrance to the cave are two large rock formations that people think look like the heads of dragons. To really get into the inner part of the cave, you have to lie down flat in what are basically rowboats on chains that get pulled under a very low opening. The rock is less than a foot from your face as you pass underneath it. Inside, the cave is much like other cave systems I have had tours of, except more of the formations are said to be dragons than in the US. Many of the areas that have been deemed popular picture-taking spots are now adorned with flourescent plastic Chinese labels with the name of the site. There is a beautiful waterfall inside the cave, and the rock above its mouth is carved to look like a dragon's head with water spilling from its mouth, but the eyes have light bulbs in them, and the whiskers have been covered over with bright red plastic replacements to make them more obvious, which kind of ruined the view in my opinion. Also, if you do not avail yourself of the official photographer services at the various scenic points, they still want to charge you. The exit to the cave is 1/3 of the way up the mountain, so we climbed and climbed the stone stairs to get to the top of the cave. If we had continued on up the mountain, there was a temple at the top, but we were apparently moving too slow and behind schedule.

Our next stop, after a long, scenic, winding drive back down the mountain, was at a traditional medicine hospital in Jinhua. Qian's father is a doctor there. Pat T. in our group is a dietician, while Pat P. is a trained nurse/EMT, and both expressed a lot of interest in seeing hospital practices here, so Qian arranged our visit. First we got to see the pharmacy, which was filled with row after row of drawers containing different herbs, and on top of the drawers on the side of the room were painted ceramic pots containing even more. The pharmacist would consult her list of ingredients, take her handheld balance to the proper drawer, measure out the appropriate weight of herb, and then distribute it evenly to the 5 or 6 prescriptions she was preparing. After the herbs are measured out, the mixtures are taken to the boiling room and turned into teas. There is also another place where they can prepare concentrates, but we didn't see that. Upstairs, we were shown the massage and accupuncture rooms. In the massage room, there was actually a woman getting treatment, but she didn't seem to mind us parading through the room, and in fact received two cell phone calls while we were there, talking all the while as the therapist did his thing. In the accupuncture room, no one was being treated, but the accupuncturist proudly showed off his needles and pretended to put one in Qian's arm so Pat T. could get a picture.

Our last stop before dinner was the auto factory, because Jinhua is very proud to have it. It actually makes only long distance buses. The shift had just ended when we got there, so nothing was really going on, but we got to see the various buses that had been left at their stations. The one that was the most finished was a sleeper bus, which I had never seen before. It looked kind of like a more practical version of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter, with stacked bunk beds in rows. It is the most expensive kind of bus there is. Right now is not the busy season for bus production, so the factory only runs one shift now, in which they can produce six buses. During the busy winter season, to prepare for the spring traveling season, the factory runs 3 shifts, so they can turn out buses 24 hours a day.

After that, we went to the best hotel in Jinhua to meet the mayor for dinner. We had so many people that we had to sit at two tables, and since I wasn't at the mayor's table, I don't know much about him. He did come over to our table at one point to toast each of us individually, and he seemed very taken with the fact that Debbie and I had our hair braided "in Chinese style." We were treated to all the finest dishes, including shark fin soup, which is extremely expensive. I can now report that shark fin itself doesn't really taste like anything, and the soup itself isn't really soupy, more congealed and vaguely buttery tasting. We also had Jinhua ham, which tastes a lot like country ham, but with the fat still on, as they seem to always prepare ham here. I gave my fat to Lee.

Eventually, the dinner ended and we all got back in the little bus for the 3-hour drive back to Hangzhou. I think we were all pretty tired when we got back, but we certainly had gotten to see a lot of interesting things in one day.