The first week of October was a national holiday in China. Actually it was two holidays - one traditional and one modern - rolled into one. The traditional holiday is the Mid-Autumn Festival (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival). The modern holiday is National Day, which celebrates the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, kind of like our 4th of July.
There are only three holidays in China (this one, Lunar New Year, and the May Holiday) but each lasts for an entire week. Since this is the only time many people get off work, it is common to travel during these times. We decided to act like the locals and take a short trip with a couple of other Dow Corning families.
We visited Hangzhou (pronounced hong-zo), which is about 100 miles southwest of Shanghai. It's an old city built around a large lake named Xi Hu, or West Lake. The city is modern, clean, and with only 4 million people, much smaller than Shanghai. In the 13th century, Marco Polo declared the city to be "paradise," but I wouldn't go that far. The surrounding area has several museums and Buddhist temples. We took lots of pictures, which are here http://picasaweb.google.com/baamick/Hangzhou.
More information about the city can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangzhou.
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