Fall Festival

At the end of my previous update I ended with visiting the 'beach' at the lake north of Huzhou.  I am going to pick up from that point, we were still on fall festival so Kyle was home and we were doing some local stuff that we have never done in Huzhou.  After going to the beach our friend Angela volunteered to take us to a popular hiking area.  I always thought that it was a temple when I could see it on clear days from the river walk but it turns out it is just a pagoda you can climb after you climb the mountain/hill it is on.  I was surprised she volunteered to go up with us because her husband is out of town and her daughter is just a few months older than Madi which means she would need lots of help up the path.  The Chinese are not into physical activity.  It is normal to see high heels when you go to a designated 'hiking' area.  And when I say high heels, I mean 3 - 4 inch contraptions that the women here wear.  I am constantly amazed at how well women here can walk in heels, and the crazy thing is they all wear them!  Even their tennis shoes are usually elevated a couple inches.  It is rather humorous. 

I wish that I knew the name of this place, Angela told me but it has been a few weeks so I forgot.

 The entire hike was stairs.  The little people thought they could do it and insisted on walking.  This made it an exceptionally long morning!  It was a nice walk, but next time our little tot will not be walking by herself!  The other two girls did totally fine, but they were very tired of stairs by the end of the morning.  Kenz decided that hikes were not something she enjoyed :)

 At the top!  We wanted to go up inside the pagoda but they saw us and said there is a charge!  Even though Angela came up here with her husband and of course it was free.  Foreigners equal money, the problem for the Chinese is that I am almost as cheap as they are so I said forget it!  :)

 Views from the top

At the end of the week Typhoon Fitow hit China and the Zhejiang province got a LOT of rain.  We figure that over the three days it rained we must have gotten at least 15 inches.  The river rose over 10 feet.  It was impressive!  And turns out, it also became really entertaining.  This is day 1 of the rain.  The Chinese drive through anything and they do not like to pay for parking so they park on the street, at night they double park, park up on the sidewalk, drive up the ramp and park on the river walk, if it is a flat surface they park there.  So, normally this street is full of cars at night, this was during the day so only a couple cars got stuck at first. 

Next came the people who thought they could get through by just gunning it.  Entertaining.  HAHA!  We actually went down on the 2nd day to get some food because I was not prepared for a Typhoon, this is what happens when you are completely disengaged from local news...  anyway, we took the girls over the bridge to the river walk and Kyle went down to the street.  No way the girls and I were getting into that water!  SO GROSS!  Anyway, it was above Kyle's knees at that point and it rained for a solid 24 hours after that.

The owner comes out and decides to put a sack and rubber band around her muffler...

Then they push her to higher ground.  The fact that they all had their umbrella's made me happy :) 

 Next morning this Mercedes was in the middle of the road.  Evidently he thought he could get through.  Why you even start down a flooded road with a Mercedes is beyond me.  Keep in mind this road goes to nothing, it is in the back of our complex, not a main road, mainly a parking lot by night and a truck route by day

 This guy came in and was loading flooded cars all day, the girls had fun watching that process.

 Bystanders.  Smoking and yelling instructions.  Classic

 Advising the owner of this car as she tries to clean it out.  The best part about this car was that we saw her drive down the road, saw her get stuck, a bunch of guys tried to come and push her out, they couldn't get her up the ramp... didn't help that the 5 passengers didn't actually get out of the car.  WHAT?  3 of them were guys!  I was kind of shocked.  Anyway, they finally got her car doors above water and as the guys were pushing her to higher ground the dudes in the back seat opened the doors and using their hands pushed water out.  Thanks guys.  Good effort.

 Remember the Mercedes?  The flat bed truck was not good enough for this guy.  He actually brought in a 5 section crane.  YES!  This is really happening.  I had to call Kyle at this point.  I was actually gleeful!

I have plenty of video.  I am not going to lie, it would have been even better if they would have dropped it...  I know, that isn't nice to say, but I could have had a video go viral on YouTube.  Think of the possibilities! 

 The girls were pretty much entertained all day.  And yes, I know this is dangerous...  Don't worry, I was holding them in when I wasn't taking pictures of video's.

 The owner letting all the water out.

 

 Storm moving out...