Just Jiaxing Around

Anyone who knows Jenny and me knows we are trouble. Our first night out together 3 days in to our friendship resulted in broken legs, busted scooters, and a hostile takeover of her apartment. Against all odds we have made it through a year of knowing each other without dying or getting booted out of the country. That is not to say, however, that our troublesome nature has not benefitted us. We bring out the extremes in each other, and as a result there is never a dull moment in our friendship. Our most recent exploit took place in the town of Jiaxing. We love to travel, and will travel just about anywhere, in this case no questions asked. Before translating itinerary or locating our destination on a map, we committed to a weekend adventure in Jiaxing. I spent the following week telling people I was going on a trip to Jinqiao (an industrial zone on the outskirts of the city). People were confused.

For starters, we got to the train station 10 minutes before departure time. In Shanghai we say "everyone loves a que." There was a 2 day line for Kanye's overpriced white t-shirts. People wait 3 hours for bubble tea that can be ordered to your home in 30 minutes. There are lines everywhere. The train station was no different and there was no way we were getting our tickets on time. But who needs tickets when you have charm...? Dashing to the departure gate to Jiaxing (not Jinqiao) we mumbled Chinglish and flailed our hands like a Sim character in front of a fire until the gate agent let us board with literally not 1 minute to spare. Again, my friends; charm, elegance, persuasion, these are our strong suits.

After a surprisingly short 30 minute train ride, we emerged from the womb that was Jiaxing station confused and in search of coffee. The nice people from Ctrip immediately spotted the lost laowai and came to save us from ourselves. We met the group we would be spending every waking moment for the next two days with and boarded a bus to Nanbei hu. What is Nanbei hu? We had no idea. But as luck would have it, it turned out to be a gorgeous lake set between green mountains beneath clear blue skies. The most amazing part? We had it nearly all to ourselves. I almost feel guilty writing about it as I want to keep it a secret. Rarely in China do you find a place this peaceful, and when you do you do your best to keep it as such.

Full disclosure- Jenny and I took this trip as "KOLs" or "Key Opinion Leaders" with the expectation we would share photos and musings from our trip with others. Easy enough, we thought, we can "do it for the gram." As it turns out we didn't know the first thing about being KOLs and our ignorance became our strength. The more ridiculous we were, the more the photographer loved us. We did not play it cool. We were able to be "us" in our purest form and our purest form is just plain weird. Our goofiness took on a snowball effect and as we hurdled toward absurdity levels from which we could not return our brand was born: The Mariboro Girls.

As the Mariboro girls, we continued to entertain the nice people of Jiaxing as we stumbled our way through water towns and historical landmarks the remainder of the day. We arrived at the Jiaxing Ramada utterly exhausted but happy none the less.

Within seconds of getting to our room shoes were off, comfy hotel robes were on as was the HBO. Fluffy robes, satellite TV, bath tubs, these were all things we lacked in our daily lives. It was phenomenal. To top it off we ordered a basket of cookies to compliment our movie selection, the Rock and Kevin Hart classic, Central Intelligence. Halfway through the movie Jenny asked which "Rocky" this was. I stared in disbelief and said it was not, in fact, Rocky the boxing movie. "Ah of course, Jenny exclaimed, that actress wasn't in Rocky." None of these actors were in Rocky, Jenny, none of these actors were in Rocky. I don't know what was louder, my laughter or the thunder that was billowing outside our curtained window.

After what according to my Xiaomi Mi Fit band was the best sleep of my life, we rose bright and early to catch Wuzhen water town before it got to crowded. Except, apparently it is always crowded. The peaceful scenes of Nanbei hu were a thing of the past as we rubbed shoulders and bumped elbows with the thousands of people looking to take a "leisurely" Sunday stroll. We sought refuge on a boat that took us away from the crowds for a glorious 15 minutes, all of which were spent trying to commandeer the boat. The captain of our small but mighty ship prevailed despite our best efforts.

From Wuzhen we rode a few minutes away from the chaos to an adorable restaurant with an even cuter child mascot. I wish all restaurants came with mini humans I could chase around until the food was ready. We gorged ourselves on pork fat and baozi that absolutely did not disappoint and the restaurant owner could not have been more welcoming. Following one more stop at a historical (and thankfully vacant) house, we boarded the bus back to the train station.

In true Mariboro girl form, we didn't let the fact there were no early tickets left stop us. Onward we ran on to the train and in an instant our scenery transitioned from rolling hills to towering apartment complexes. It took three times as long to get out of the train station as it did to get to Shanghai from Jiaxing. That is the price we pay for city living I suppose. For those of you that need a break from our fast paced life, I suggest you hightail it over to Jinqiao for a weekend away that you won't regret.