Photo Shoot + My Trip to Hangzhou

The week before last was extremely eventful. A while back my purse was stolen from a restaurant's coatcheck, so I went on Beijing's version of Craiglist to post a bad review about it. To my surprise, I got an email in response asking me if I was the girl in my user picture and if so, if I wanted a modeling gig. The gig was for a dental company, so on top of getting paid, I got free teeth whitening out of it. 太好了! The shoot was a lot of fun, and I actually ended up knowing one of the girls there! We had met earlier in the semester at a Paul Van Dyk concert and exchanged numbers, but neither one of us had cell phones at the time and scraps of paper are hard to hold onto at a concert, so I thought I'd never see her again. There were less than 10 models at the shoot, which goes to show how small of a world it is!

Photos from the photo shoot:
Getting Ready:

Lots of Waiting:


Later that week, my program arranged for us to go to Hangzhou, which is a really pretty city in the south of China (close to Shanghai). It's China's #1 tourist spot, so the city was extremely clean; in fact, littering and spitting are outlawed. We took a boat across the West Lake, which is a really famous scenic spot (it's actually pictured on the back of the 1 yuan). Then we went to the Lingyin Monastery. Lingyin Monastery is China's oldest standing monastery and is in the top 10 most famous Buddhist temples in China, so I felt really lucky to have the opportunity to explore it.
The next day, I went with a few friends to the "snack street," which would be better described as a shopping street considering the food section was only an alley. They had really great stuff though. Usually in China I have to sift through tons of junk to find something I like, but everything I saw there I wanted to buy. My best purchase was a bag of 龙井问茶, China's most prized green tea that is only grown in Hangzhou.
We left on Sunday, much to our dismay. Hangzhou is so beautiful that none of us wanted to leave. Our only motivation for returning to Beijing was that next week was Spring Break, and we would be off to Inner Mongolia to eat cheese and ride camels， 挺热闹！!

Pictures from Hangzhou:
Hangzhou's West Lake (in comparison to the back of China's yuan):


Practicing the ""Beijing Squat":


Hangzhou's West Lake:




Rachel, Me, Ali, and Melissa Posing with the Boatman (he was embarrassed that he was eating ice cream in our picture haha!):


Pictures from Lingyin Monastery:






China's Best Rickshaw Driver (this guy first took all 4 of us in the back of his 2-seater rickshaw, then later when he took Ali and I he literally stopped his rickshaw to laugh at a woman who lost her shoe while riding a bike, then said "我很开心“ aka "I'm very open-hearted..I'd say so!):