Day 20

I took another plane ride today. I flew from Beijing to Hangzhou; once again, it was interrupted with some delays. Hangzhou is located inland ways with latitude about half way between Beijing and Shanghai and has a population of nearly 6.7 million. The view out of the airplane window when we were landing was pretty cool as it was almost all fields of rice. I am hoping that we travel outside of the city during our two day stay here. When I arrived, I rode with Jason from the US grains council. He had a friend pick us up and bring us to our hotel. He actually plays basketball in the Chinese version of the NBA. It was somewhat cool meeting him. Something not many people can say they have done. This afternoon I had some free time to spend in Hangzhou. Hangzhou was described by Marco Polo as one of the finest and most splendid cities in the world. The hotel we are staying is located across the street from The West Lake. It is one of 32 named lakes in China. Way different from our ten thousand in Minnesota. It was pretty nice to walk around the lake. It reminded me of home. Although, the Chinese people wanting to take pictures with me reminded me that I was still in China. J Tonight I ate supper in the hotel as Jason had some business he wanted to take care of so he left me to find my own supper. It was a good chance to have some western food. I had a grilled steak and fries. It was very good I know I miss my mainly meat and potato diet from the states. Tonight I am relaxing in my room and managed to find a few English television channels. Some places will have a few but this hotel actually has some of the top English ones, aka HBO, ESPN, and a few other movie ones. It is nice to have ESPN to relax to, it helps get rid of some of the homesickness. Six weeks is a long time to not have a connection with my family and friends.