In October we went with the university for a weekend to Anji. Anji? Never heard of it? It s a small city, located in Zhejiang Province, famous for bamboo (the biggest bamboo forest in China) and recently, also famous because of the movie "Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon" (A kind of chinese proverb meaning: One that is powerful often hides his strength so that when offensive measures are needed, the attack seems out of proportion to his apparent strength.), which partly took place in one of the bamboo forests. From Shanghai it took us 3 hours by bus to get there. Then it was really amazing, bamboo whereever you turn. It was also good to get out of town, seeing some nature instead of cement. The area is very rural but in the middle there is like out of heaven a city with all the stores we have in Shanghai. Somehow misplaced. Our hotel: Seeing it left us speechless. No wonder the Chinese are disappointed when they come to visit Europe and the old culture places; not even slightly as bombastic as chinese imitation of Europe.
