A Running Log of the Family New Year’s Eve Dinner Trip During the 2009 Spring Festival
Gu Chu published on 2009-02-09 20:56:31
Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/HYL510/09124
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This was this year’s so-called trip by the whole family (including the maternal cousins) from New Year’s Eve to the second day of the first lunar month, our first attempt at eating New Year’s Eve dinner away from home. In short, it was mainly about eating the New Year’s Eve dinner, and really can’t be called much of a trip… I’ll jot down a brief running log along the photos: photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/HYL510/09124 
On the morning of the 25th, we got up very early to find the travel agency’s bus. Departure was at 7 o’clock. That road was lined in grand procession with several dozen coaches parked there (because I only took out the camera after getting on the bus, I wasn’t able to capture that spectacular scene), all of them for New Year trips organized by this travel agency to various places. We walked from one end to the other and then from the other end back to the first, and finally found our bus. Even now I still don’t know exactly where we went; in any case, we went to Xiangshan, Zhejiang, and some places around it.
Passing over the Hangzhou Bay Bridge.
This is the so-called tour guide. A tour guide with the style of a housewife who doesn’t speak standard Mandarin well; she gave us a few quiz questions at this point, nothing of substance, and it didn’t stir up the atmosphere…
Around 10 o’clock, we arrived at the first scenic spot and got off the bus.
My dad.
My aunt and uncle, and my cousin’s girlfriend (they’re getting married this year…).
Grandma, my uncle, my aunt-in-law, and her mother.
My cousin’s family
Anyway, this is the scenic spot… I’m not even going to bother anymore…
Around 11 o’clock we got to the restaurant for lunch. My uncle.
The main highlight of the afternoon was soaking in hot springs. But…
Just think about it and you can tell: first, how big can the natural hot springs in a place like this possibly be? Second, how many people would come soaking in hot springs at a time like this? So I said from the start that I wasn’t going to soak. Sure enough, once we got there, it was just as I expected: a sea of people. Let alone there not being enough lockers, there wasn’t even enough room to stand in line. I squeezed in through the entrance to take two photos and then came out; the other family members gave up, and in the end only my aunt, my cousin, and my soon-to-be cousin-in-law went in. They said it felt wonderfully comfortable, but as for me, I’d much rather just soak in the bathtub at home…
Next to the hot spring hotel there was a wetland scenic area; since I wasn’t soaking in the hot springs, of course I had to go for a walk.
The air was pretty good, and there were very few people around; taking a quiet stroll was much more pleasant than squeezing into that steamy crowd~
Walking and walking.
I walked to another hotel nearby and lay down for a while on the lounge chair at the entrance (later the security guard chased me away…).
This was one of that hotel’s open-air hot springs; not long after, a traveler went in to soak.
On the way back, I saw that there was a gentle hillside by the road that looked easy to climb, so I went off by myself to explore~
Climbing the hill through a little bamboo grove
I found a little path
and climbed up to the mountaintop along the path…
It turned out to be a telecom bureau signal tower…
Anyway, I suppose that counts as a successful exploration with a discovery… I went back down the mountain along the little path…
After the bathers finished soaking and got on the bus, a little after 5:30 we arrived at the four-star hotel where we would eat New Year’s Eve dinner and stay the night, (little whale specimen)
Mom gave my future nephew’s wife a mink scarf.
A four-star bed. (I didn’t really feel much difference; the only difference is that the higher the star rating, the darker the room… Looks like I’m still better suited to staying in a guesthouse…)
The New Year’s Eve dinner was still pretty good. I was too busy eating to take many photos. After dinner we went back to the room, watched the Spring Festival Gala while playing cards. The moment of midnight still passed on the toilet…
The buffet breakfast the next morning was the best buffet breakfast I have ever had to this day. Besides all the usual breakfast staples—steamed buns, soy milk, milk, oatmeal, bread, porridge, and so on—there were also plenty of meats and side dishes, and there were at least four kinds of salad alone. It tasted good too. 
After eating our fill, we went for a walk by the nearby beach.
My aunt-in-law wanted to take a photo with the faucet by the roadside in the parking lot where you wash your feet, saying this design was very human-centered.
The first scenic spot of the morning was the so-called Yuqiao Ancient Town.
A college student’s student ID doesn’t work there. Just this one place charges a 60-yuan admission fee, basically robbery…
Seeing the Buddha, burning incense—I of course wasn’t going to do that.
Route map.
Model
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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