It was a day of those chance encounters that really make traveling rich. The first occurred at lunch where I polished off a plate of hongshao rou with nearly the entire restaurant staff around me. Talked for a long time to this local dude who promised to put me in touch with an editor from Shanghai who was also in town, which he did. There was the fuwuyuan from Shaolin Si who really likes Yu Hua (though didn’t know YH was also a Shaoxing native!) and who told me she came to Shaoxing on her own and slept on a bench for two days before finding work. Later in the 沈园I talked literature with Jing Xiaojie (who looked like she desperately needed some male attention) and politics with Seymour Du, a student at the Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, who looked like a young Zhou Enlai and will probably be premier in 35 years. Yes, I kept his contact and we plan to meet up in a couple weeks when I’m back north. Speaking of north, on 会稽山mountain, two guys from Harbin talked my ear off as we navigated back down the endless stairs. They spat and cursed and made me laugh and proved once again that northerners lack a little bit in the 素质department and why that might theoretically be okay. Then finally on the bus back into town I ran into a teacher from the Foreign Languages University who had “I am a creepy old sexual predator” written all over him. As a side note, Shaoxing’s Foreign Languages University is THE place to go to find a good Chinese wife. You’re just going to have to trust me on this.

沈园 is nice, but I recommend buying a night ticket where you can stroll the grounds, sip excellent teas at very fine teahouses while being entertained by traditional Chinese music played live in front of you. Steep at RMB80, but worth it.

The real find of the day was the Zen temple on 会稽山. Simply incredible. 会稽山 is also the home to the monument to King Yu are and Seymour told me that I should check out the Yu-ster simply for his significance in Chinese history. Legend has it that he was the guy who perfected flood control. Put another way, he figured out how to built dykes, dams and irrigation channels. Put another way, he invented agrarian Chinese life. Put another way, he’s the father of Chinese civilization. All well and good, but it’s really a Chinese thing and not interesting to me. Plus it’s a RMB50 ticket. The Zen Temple, on the other hand, is RMB15 and that gets you full access to the park area (excluding King Yu’s temple) and the Zen Temple. It’s a very impressive temple, big and practically new. But the best part is that there is a mountain path which you follow up and up and up and up and up eventually lifting you up to a high ridge where there is a big temple complex. 40 monks live there full time, perched in the clouds. Absorb 360 degree views of the area. The mountain is entirely forested with just a few small pavilions built discreetly on the high slopes which you can reach via paved paths. And birds chirping everywhere! Allot at least a full afternoon for all this, starting at 1pm. Also dig the other totally unique feature of 会稽山: graves. From a distance you think certain of the slopes are inhabited. They are, but not by the living. Creepy and cool and I really regret not having time to wander among them. Some of them look quite old.

That was my day. Now it’s off for some 黄酒 and some dinner to go along with it.