Winter Clothes & Western Food

This past weekend, I went to Hangzhou to visit my friend Jin Song again. However, this past week, the weather had turned noticeably colder, and I figured it'd be a good idea to go ahead and get some warm winter clothes for when it gets even worse. Earlier in the week I had bought some long underwear (didn't need it yet, but I want to be prepared) and a hooded sweater (because I had to have SOMEthing to wear while I washed my jacket, which had become a bit dirty).

But now I needed to actually do some serious shopping and get some more clothes. So Jin Song went to the a mall in Hangzhou with me where they were having a sale. By the way, Hangzhou has SOOO many more people. I guess that's going to be typical of a large city though, but I'm actually thankful to be in Huzhou for that reason, I'm not overwhelmed by the sheer number of people.

Anyhow I did find a new pair of jeans (because my 2 pairs that I brought with me are really all I have here in the way of pants) a nice long—sleeve shirt, some quality gloves, and a REALLY nice (at least I think so) down jacket. Here's some picture of the new duds.

I kind of look like a serial killer in this picture, but thats the look I was going for while posing, so there.

I was able to buy the down jacket for $75 USD at a Jack Jones store, which seems like it was a good deal, but I'm not sure how much a jacket like this would cost in the US.

Anyways, that day in Hangzhou I did get to take advantage of one of the benefits of being in a larger, more westernish Chinese city: availability of western food!

For breakfast Jin Song and I went to a hotel that had an “American style” breakfast buffet. It was definitely a heart-clogging, diabetus-inducing meal, but oh was it good! I went up several times, but here you can see my first plate:



I guess that may seem quite ordinary for the rest of you back home (basically a grand slam at Denny's), and don't get me wrong, I'm not ripping on Chinese food, but it was definitely nice (albeit slightly expensive) to get some familiar breakfast foods.

The culinary indulgence didn't end there though. After a long, hard day of shopping, we went to one of the many pizza establishments they have in Hangzhou: Papa John's Pizza. Again, nothing really out of the ordinary for those at home, but it was great for me to enjoy some excellent marinera sauce (and not be surprised by the taste of ketchup) and some tasty chain-restaurant style pizza. I have to say though, I like the pizza at the Papa John's here better than at Papa John's places in the states.



Also, here is a nice shot of West Lake near sunset, just because it's a cool picture.