Tea and a Pagoda

Today started with several hours of class, but the afternoon brought a field trip. We started by visiting the China National Tea Museum here in Hangzhou. The Chinese have a rich tea history that the museum sought to illustrate. It was a very nice museum and I enjoyed the visit, which is saying something since I don’t really even like tea. Richard Nixon even visited the museum back in 1993. The beautiful grounds of the museum are pictured below.
After departing the museum we headed for the Dragon Well Tea Farm area nearby. This is a grouping of functioning tea farms that you can visit, and then stop by a local house to have tea. We visited a house on top of a hill that offered beautiful views all around. We had tea (well, I didn’t) and then relaxed for a while. There was a funny mynah bird that kept saying Chinese phrases that kept us entertained for quite a while. Below is a picture of our Chinese teacher Cherry and me at the tea house. Cherry is a freelance teacher that is known as one of the best Chinese teachers in the area. She lives in Hangzhou with her husband and daughter, who we got to meet at the dinner on July 4th.

After the tea farms we went to visit one of the famous pagodas in the area. This one is called the Pagoda of Six Harmonies, and has quite a story associated with it that involves a boy Liuhe (pictured below in front of his pagoda). We did climb to the 13th floor to see some great views of Hangzhou.