Mid Autumn Festival

Hunter and I celebrated the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival with a relaxing four day weekend. The Mid-Autumn Festival is a harvest festival celebrated in many Asian countries. The ancient Chinese observed the movement of the moon and believed it had a close relationship with the changes in season and agricultural production. Hence, to express their thanks to the moon and celebrate the harvest, they offered a sacrifice to the moon on autumn days. It is now an official public holiday and my favorite part was all the moon cakes they handed out at school. A lot of my students and parents brought these delicious addicting cakes; I have some leftover and I can't stop eating them!

For our time off, we planned a nice weekend in Hangzhou and left early last Thursday via a one hour train ride. Hangzhou is full of beauty and history and is the kind of place you imagine when you think of China. It was nice to get away from industrial Kunshan, breathe some fresh air, and take in the scenery.  I don't have much to say except that West Lake is the main attraction and it is gorgeous. I will let the pictures do all the talking.

 Sleepy faces! We woke up early to head to Hangzhou and have some fun!

 We stayed in a hostel. I was really hesitant about doing so but it turned out great! It was cute, had everything we needed, and it was cheap too!

 It just had the basic necessities.

Our hostel was in a really neat area. There were tons of restaurants, shops, and vendors. 

We finally tried the chicken on a stick we see everywhere. It was pretty good.

Neat building near our hostel.

We explored West Lake on Thursday. At least as much as we could, there is so much to see! This city is definitely a hot spot for Chinese tourists; it was packed.

We took a nice boat ride across the lake. There are a few islands and sights to see and the boats would take you to all of them.

 This was a really cool temple we explored on Thursday.

 The two pictures above are the hostel. Pretty cute place!

 We went out for dinner and drinks one night at a Western restaurant. Really great nachos and margaritas! They also had some good music playing. The entire place reminded me of Austin and I got a little homesick.