Shao Xing (绍兴)

Another week, another weekend trip! We hopped on our bikes and headed down to the metro station. You'll notice my yellow fenders! I spent about a week painting those yellow!!! Hahaha. It took many many layers to cover up the blue below. I learned much patience from this bike. : D

On the way to the metro station we found some blossoming plum trees! So of course we stopped and took a photo. 

I sneakily got a photo of this guy who also stopped to photograph the plum trees after seeing us there. 

I really love this about China!! There are so many fun places to slide down!! It's so much fun. What's crazy is that even when you go to the ancient temple you can find it! I love China!

Okay, so I'm not quite wearing a striped shirt with the correct colors, but I thought this made a nice Where's Waldo-esque scene.

Joerg commented on how he loved how these two Chinese girls were dressed, so I offered to go ask them if he could get a photo with them. They seemed to happily agree...right up until the moment that I actually took the photo because here it definitely looks like they're not too into it. Haha.

The Lan Ting Orchid Pavilion is where the famous Wang Xizhi composed famous works of Calligraphy (circa 353 AD). Him and his friends would sit along a small stream and float cups of wine down it. If a cup of wine stopped in front of you, you were to pick it up, drink it, and write a poem! 

I totally want to have something like this in my house someday. I love plants, and I love that even inside the house there is an area that is open and has nature. 

We really had a great trip to Lan Ting and Shao Xing. After going back to Shao Xing we stepped into a music store for a few minutes and met a really friendly shop owner. He began telling us about instruments and I told him I wanted to know about the Gu Zheng. In particular, I wanted to know if there was a smaller Gu Zheng. 

Here's a random photo I found of a lady playing a Gu Zheng. 

Anyway, he told me that there Is one. It's an Er Tong Gu Zheng (which means a child-size Gu Zheng). I said, no, that's not what I want. So I gave up on finding a smaller version. 

About an hour later (we really sat down and talked for awhile), I asked him if there were any Chinese instruments that he didn't sell in his store. He said yes, there's one. He doesn't sell the Gu Qin. I said what is that? He says, it's like a Gu Zheng but with less strings. 

And it's not as big. 

....

So I was really happy to know that the Chinese instrument I want to learn is actually a GuQin. : )