veg-ice-zzz!!
I got down at the Hangzhou train station. With a trolley in one hand, a backpack and a refreshed mind after the power nap.
I met my buddy( a person assigned to help you out during the entire conference) at the south exit of the station and the courteous, helpful gesture of hers will always stay with me! She offered to take my trolley and then we went to a Starbucks for some lunch. Surprise! Surprise! The only vegetarian option there was yogurt and some fruits. That was actually great since all I had eaten until then was biscuits, cake, and some apple juice. I gorged on strawberries, musk melon, grapes and dragon fruit.
(You can tell that strawberries are my favorite since you can't see any in the picture below )
We then took a cab to our hotel (EBO Hotel near the University). It was a comfortable ride after a tiring journey but didn't last long, yet I had the time to chat with my buddy. During the course of ous conversation, I realized that there might be a huge cultural difference between India and China but many aspects associated with the society are largely similar; be it children being forced to settle in life, the usual, pressurizing competition, the huge population, and its consequences. She was the very first Chinese person I had interacted with for a long time since I had landed in China and I could easily decipher their sense of punctuality, their love for WeChat, and most surprisingly their strong admiration for Aamir Khan's films.
This is one of the most fascinating and proud moment for me as an Indian to see that most of the people I met in China were enthralled by Aamir Khan's movies; especially Dangal and 3 Idiots and it felt so nice to see the global outreach of such value-based films.
The hotel's exterior enunciated modern while the interiors beckoned a vintage soul!
After freshening up, I accompanied a couple of other delegates from Philippines and China and we headed towards the university for an ice-breaker event.
All the conversations I had over e-mail, WhatsApp, WeChat was not even close to the fun of live interaction with all of them. We had a lot of activities such as pass through the loop, Chinese Whisper and much more!
After an entertaining session and loads of fun interaction, we headed back to the hotel and I was in anticipation of a scrumptious dinner, strangely none of the others seemed to share my enthusiasm.
Turns out, the dinner time there is at 5:30 p.m. and my healthy fruit diet was my dinner in disguise! But luckily I had company, along with two other girls I headed out to an eatery and while they had a bowl of momos (which of course doesn't have a vegetarian counterpart) I ate some spring onion crisps with some spicy chili sauce.
I met my buddy( a person assigned to help you out during the entire conference) at the south exit of the station and the courteous, helpful gesture of hers will always stay with me! She offered to take my trolley and then we went to a Starbucks for some lunch. Surprise! Surprise! The only vegetarian option there was yogurt and some fruits. That was actually great since all I had eaten until then was biscuits, cake, and some apple juice. I gorged on strawberries, musk melon, grapes and dragon fruit.
(You can tell that strawberries are my favorite since you can't see any in the picture below )
We then took a cab to our hotel (EBO Hotel near the University). It was a comfortable ride after a tiring journey but didn't last long, yet I had the time to chat with my buddy. During the course of ous conversation, I realized that there might be a huge cultural difference between India and China but many aspects associated with the society are largely similar; be it children being forced to settle in life, the usual, pressurizing competition, the huge population, and its consequences. She was the very first Chinese person I had interacted with for a long time since I had landed in China and I could easily decipher their sense of punctuality, their love for WeChat, and most surprisingly their strong admiration for Aamir Khan's films.
This is one of the most fascinating and proud moment for me as an Indian to see that most of the people I met in China were enthralled by Aamir Khan's movies; especially Dangal and 3 Idiots and it felt so nice to see the global outreach of such value-based films.
The hotel's exterior enunciated modern while the interiors beckoned a vintage soul!
After freshening up, I accompanied a couple of other delegates from Philippines and China and we headed towards the university for an ice-breaker event.
All the conversations I had over e-mail, WhatsApp, WeChat was not even close to the fun of live interaction with all of them. We had a lot of activities such as pass through the loop, Chinese Whisper and much more!
After an entertaining session and loads of fun interaction, we headed back to the hotel and I was in anticipation of a scrumptious dinner, strangely none of the others seemed to share my enthusiasm.
Turns out, the dinner time there is at 5:30 p.m. and my healthy fruit diet was my dinner in disguise! But luckily I had company, along with two other girls I headed out to an eatery and while they had a bowl of momos (which of course doesn't have a vegetarian counterpart) I ate some spring onion crisps with some spicy chili sauce.
Later on, we all headed back to our rooms and slipped under the comfy blanket and dozed off! We had to be up early the very next day, a whole day of adventure, learning and interaction awaited us!
Comments
Post a Comment