First rainy day in Hangzhou

May 23rd, Monday

A cleaner in the IC hotel's entrance hall

About to spend seventeen days by myself in Hangzhou while Chris was working across the river with the QNX customers, I was taken aback when the first of those days turned out wet. I'd imagined sitting on a bench beside West Lake on my first day of independence, soaking up the sun and the local atmosphere. Rain or no rain, I still had to work out how to reach the lake (half an hour's drive away) without relying on those scary taxis without seat belts. For the sake of reassuring Chris of my safety and whereabouts, I also needed to buy a sim card for the unlocked Chinese cellphone that my Ottawa friend Yiwen had lent me.

I used the computer in the club lounge before breakfast and lingered over the breakfast too, with close attention paid to me by the hotel staff, all young, slim, and immaculately attired. Then Emily the chambermaid returned our laundered clothes to my room in a wicker basket, cleaned, folded and packed in cellophane. It was a pleasure to unpack them.

An established pond in the CBD gardens

I chose to borrow a hotel umbrella and walk to the MixC mall to see whether I could buy a sim card there. I couldn't; it was the wrong kind of place, but I explored the complex, finding a lackey to fold my umbrella into a plastic bag for me at the entrance, a drug store, an upscale supermarket called Olé (mentioned on the Hangzhou Expat Forum, a far cry from the Beijing Wumart), many high end clothiers (Dior, Armani and the like), a bookshop––selling a few books in English: fiction by bestselling authors Ian McEwan, Alain de Botton, Paul Coehlo, as well as a wide range of hardbacks on modern architecture and landscape design––an indoor skating rink and a large selection of dining opportunities. For lunch at the Tai Hing restaurant I ordered stir fried rice, beef, chicken and pea pods flavoured with ginger and garlic, with a glass pot of tea crammed with chopped fresh fruit and sweetened with honey, an excellent meal.

Lady gardeners in the rain, Hangzhou CBD

Slipping on the marble flagstones as I wandered slowly back to the hotel in the rain through the local gardens, I took in the sculpture park. Gardeners were squatting on the wet lawns to weed them, wearing plastic ponchos and conical straw hats. Others were sweeping out the brand new decorative ponds (the ones not yet filled with water or planted with water plants) with their reed brooms.

Chinese security measures!

Before Chris came home (as it were) in his chauffeured limousine, I had tea in the club lounge and tried watching the BBC World Service in our room, but the reception failed in the middle of a report about Tibet. I wonder why. In the evening we once again walked along the promenade by the river, under the suspension bridge and back finding a Bamboo Grows Coffee Pond, not yet open (did they mean "Grove"?) where massages will be offered, in time. We stayed at the hotel for a very pricey buffet supper, choosing to eat a combination of European and Asian food; eating cheese with chopsticks is an eccentric thing to do. Chris liked the chocolate fountain at the desserts counter and entertained me with tales of his working day. When first arriving at his place of work, all the ports of his notebook computer had been sealed with tape, the seals inspected when he left the premises as well, a procedure which happened daily all the time he was in Hangzhou, presumably to prevent any industrial espionage. After lunch, all the employees had unrolled their office mats and had lain down side by side for an obligatory siesta, like children at a nursery, while Chris had taken the opportunity to sit quietly, catching up with his emails.