3rd day in China:
3. 杭州 絲綢博物館 紅泥 西湖 巴西BBQ 足浴 (致遠) (15th)
The 3rd day, we stayed in the same hotel as it’s cheap and good, and we have to stay in Hang-zhou for another day due to brother’s sickness.
THE SILK MUSEUM
We started the day by visiting the Silk Museum. Here we were first dragged to the silk factory, where I first encountered electricity with the tour guide. It was double the usual, strong and actually quite painful! Well he tried to pass us 3 a plastic tag each to identify ourselves as guests, and when he got around to me, somehow both of us got zapped majorly and dropped it on the floor. It was quite funny actually, but was just so shocked that static electricity can be higher than usual. We were then taken to this room with this ”Professor Silk” who tried to explain how to tell the difference between real and fake silk. There are apparently 16 kinds of Asian silk, all made by silkworms, and feel differently coz of the way they’re made and all those other factors. (and all 16 are used for different types of clothings, from scarves to pillow cases to chi-paos and underwear)
The way to identify real silk, is apparently by burning it. Fake silk, made from plastic (that’s right!) is worth $1.85 RMB, and melts under 110 degrees, unlike real silk, that’s worth more than that (depending on the leaves they eat) and melts under 220 degrees. By burning the silk from the bottom of the flame sideways, it shouldn’t melt within 15 sec, or show any signs of difference. It can also be tested by burning the edges of the silk, which should set off white smoke and when you touch where it’s been burnt, it turns into dust/powder, and smell of burnt animal hair. The fake one would melt within 2 sec upon burning on the surface with the bottom of the flame, and will scrunch up. Burning the edges will set off black smoke and smells of plastic.
Of course, they ended up wanting to sell us silk duvet, saying how it’ll last more than 10 years no problem and blah blah. The museum was quite fun, showing all different kinds of silkworms and all the silk that’s been dug up from earliest 500 BC. The most interesting thing, I must say, is when I came across a painted picture of Madame Pompadour. As some of you may know, this was the character I dressed up as on my 20th bday party to the theme of ”Historical Figures”, I dressed up as her coz that’s the only costume I could find that sort of matches in the costume shop. In this section, it said that she was the first person who bought in cross stitching and silk stuff to European countries, and started the whole Oriental-craze in Europe! That was just freakishly coincidental but if you don’t understand that’s ok :)
We also got to see all different kinds of weaving machines, not just Asian ones, but some European and Egyptian and Arabs etc too.
LUNCH AT HONG-NI
By 1pm, we were pretty hungry, and as father said he’s heard much about this restaurant near the silk museum, he thought it’d be a pity to miss it. It’s a huge restaurant called Hong-Ni, think Chong-Hwa Restaurant on the way to Arts Centre from the Square (similar style and setting) and make that 3 times bigger. The way to order was quite funny, there’s a room next to us and we’d go in and look at all the samples of the dishes. I don’t know what they’re made of, brother insisted that they’re real food but somehow preserved so they’d last a few days for display before they toss them out and make a brand new dish, but I think they’re just plastic so real that you can’t tell it’s fake. So you order by looking at what the dishes are like, and we returned to the seats. The food, I must say, wasn’t brilliant, it’s a little salty and greasy, but it’s massive and we weren’t really in the mood for oily food so we left lots behind, a bit of a pity really.
WEST LAKE (XI-HU)
We went on for a stroll by the lake as it was also nearby, with ppl approaching us asking us if we need a ride - it’s one of those 3-wheeled bicycle with a double seater at the back and we were advised not to take those in case of fraud. The lake wasn’t clean, but can’t really expect much for a lake that’s been so popular for more than 5500 years. There are a few of those Chinese arched bridges, with stone paths for walking just a few inches above water along the lake. The paths were covered in stone-carvings every few steps, and was fenced with bamboo. It is quite pretty and has an oriental feel (well duh!) with some local ppl on traditional boat (the long slender ones) floating about.
THE BRAZILIAN BBQ
After having had lunch and dinner at the restaurant run by the hotel, we thought we’d try the Brazilian BBQ run by the hotel next door. It’s on the 21st floor (top floor) of the hotel, and by the look of it, we thought it’d be a quiet place, so we got up there, just to find out that that’s where everyone was. The entire place was PACKED, and I immediately loved the place. It’s a BUFFET! The cool thing about it is that they have around 15 chefs walking around with a metre-long iron stick and a very long knife with a row of food on them. There were 20 different kinds of food on sticks with salad and general dishes on buffet. The chefs walk around visiting every table, and all you need to say is if you want it and how much, and he’d cut it for you into your plate. I got to have steak (and I asked for lots of it!), some roast beef, chicken nibbles, vege and beef combo, and had to say no to lamb steak, roast lamb, roast pineapple, roast banana (what?), roast mushroom, chicken heart, BBQ pigeon, pig’s liver and forgot what else. It was really good, I had lots of those anyway, and had probably around 3/4 worth of watermelon (I think so, that was 4 full dinner-plates of it), couldn’t say no to watermelon! Their minestrone was good too, mmmmm minestrone...!
Brother surprisingly had quite a bit, considering his stomach wasn’t feeling too well and so he just had salad and fried rice and all the things I said yes to from the chefs but in moderate amount.
Oh and that was $58 RMB each so father said we won’t be going there if we come here next time. Boo-hoo. :(
FOOT MASSAGE
There’s this thing called ”Foot massage” everywhere in China, ranging from $30 to $120 RMB, you get to have 1 to 3 hours of foot luxury. Since brother wasn’t feeling 100%, father thought it’d be good to take us for a go. The place was just opposite to our hotel, so it wasn’t exactly far. When we got there, we were taken into a room with recliners and an end table each with fruit and any drink served. Then came 3 girls, age ranged from 19 to 23 (surely not older than that) and all 3 of us got talking with them. They were very sweet and cute, and father, being him, started trying to teach them pressure points as he does to everyone who seems remotely interested. Being a foot massager, they naturally would be interested in pressure points. He started teaching them things like ”press here” and they couldn’t get it so he started showing it on them, it was completely weird for a massager to be massaged, but they were screaming out of pain and father kept proving to them that they indeed have a weak stomach, or a bad back, and all those stuff. Well it seemed he was happy to share his ”knowledge” and he probably felt superior to be teaching massagers something they should know, ah well, that was a funny scene anyway!
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