Hangzhou - Our personal fall-apart party

Yaxi and I worked hard on this trip. Between the Book Fair and the lecture, we both were ON for several days and talked until we lost our voices. So, by the time we finished the lecture, we were ready to seriously fall over. One of the faculty members at Hangzhou recommended a lovely teahouse in the middle of a garden, so that's where we headed.The teahouse was inside a beautiful garden. It was immediately obvious we were in for something special.
The teahouse itself was made of three lovely buildings.
We had to wait for a bit until a table was free, but enjoyed the company of the women who were preparing greens for the kitchen.We got a bit carried away when ordering and accidentally ordered too much for lunch. Here is what our feast was made up of.
Braised duck...
Crab on rice cakes.
Lotus root stuffed with rice (I've shared this dish a few times - it's a popular one.
Millet sponge cakes...
Noodles with greens...
Okra in a honey sauce with onions
Barbequed shrimp...
Congealed peach nectar with lychee fruit... There was also an oatmeal and sweet corn drink that was simply delicious, but not as photogenic. Everything was so inexpensive, this feat ran us about $40 for the both of us, if you can believe it! At least we knew it wouldn't go to waste - they gave all leftovers to the very happy geese.Afterwards, we took a lovely walk through the garden...

To read about my journey in order, follow these links:
01 - Shanghai!
02 - A Mall and Grocery Store
03 - Custom Dress
04 - The Long Museum
05 - The Quay on the Yangtze?
06 - Old City of Shanghai at Huangpu District
07 - Old Shanghai
08 - Dumplings for lunch!
09 - Yu Garden
10 - Storyland
11 - Hot Pot at Cloud Nice Shopping Mall Changning Branch
12 - The China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
13 - Art Exhibitions at the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
14 - Workshop: Gel Printing
15 - The train to Hangzhou
16 - Speaking at China Jiliang University
17 - Hangzhou - Our personal fall-apart party
18 - The Teahouse Garden in Hangzhou
19 - China wrap-up

Speaking at China Jiliang University

This trip began with one mission - go to the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair. That's it. And then it grew, as trips like this do. Yaxi thought her university might be interested in having me come talk to their students at the Art and Communications College. And that grew too. Official letters, stamped and signed by the Dean, Professor Ni, are what got me my VISA. By the time I go to the University of Hangzhou, my engagement had turned into a very big deal. Yaxi had posters made.The university itself was lovely.


Inside was awesome too.
The lecture hall was big enough to fit four classrooms full of students - about 300+ of them!
Yaxi and I took the stage, she translated everything I said into Chinese.It's a different sort of way to give a lecture, more intentional; but it went really well. Afterwards, the Dean presented me with a piece of hand calligraphy, something he's known for. We took a photo of everyone making the sign of a heart with their thumb and forefinger.And all the faculty together.It was quite the honor and I hope I shared some helpful information!

To read about my journey in order, follow these links:
01 - Shanghai!
02 - A Mall and Grocery Store
03 - Custom Dress
04 - The Long Museum
05 - The Quay on the Yangtze?
06 - Old City of Shanghai at Huangpu District
07 - Old Shanghai
08 - Dumplings for lunch!
09 - Yu Garden
10 - Storyland
11 - Hot Pot at Cloud Nice Shopping Mall Changning Branch
12 - The China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
13 - Art Exhibitions at the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
14 - Workshop: Gel Printing
15 - The train to Hangzhou
16 - Speaking at China Jiliang University
17 - Hangzhou - Our personal fall-apart party
18 - The Teahouse Garden in Hangzhou
19 - China wrap-up

The train to Hangzhou

After the book fair ended on Sunday, Yaxi and I hopped on a bullet train to head to Hangzhou (pronounced Hang(soft "a")•JOE) where she secured me an invitation to talk to students at the College of Art and Communication at China Jiliang University. I was thrilled to be able to try out one of these trains that I'd heard so much about! What I wasn't expecting is that we would have our own car, just like in Harry Potter with bunk beds and everything!They were quite comfortable with down pillows and throw blankets. While the view before we left was like this...once we got moving, it was too dark to see anything, so I took a nap.And dang! Give me a train to sleep on everyday! It was AWESOME!
     They put me up in a Doubletree by Marriott (totally nice and a very good choice in China!), which had lovely fish in the foyer...
and a heck of a view from my room.Wish I could have stayed there longer!

To read about my journey in order, follow these links:
01 - Shanghai!
02 - A Mall and Grocery Store
03 - Custom Dress
04 - The Long Museum
05 - The Quay on the Yangtze?
06 - Old City of Shanghai at Huangpu District
07 - Old Shanghai
08 - Dumplings for lunch!
09 - Yu Garden
10 - Storyland
11 - Hot Pot at Cloud Nice Shopping Mall Changning Branch
12 - The China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
13 - Art Exhibitions at the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
14 - Workshop: Gel Printing
15 - The train to Hangzhou
16 - Speaking at China Jiliang University
17 - Hangzhou - Our personal fall-apart party
18 - The Teahouse Garden in Hangzhou
19 - China wrap-up

Workshop: Gel Printing

I was thrilled that Yaxi and I were able to take part in the Gel Printing workshop offered in the Illustrators Survival Corner. I've been wanting to play with this method since first hearing about it. Gel printing is really just mono-printing (meaning you only get one go at any given piece); however, because you're using a gel surface to apply your paint and whatever else, it's especially forgiving. And no, it's not edible, Yaxi! LOL!We were given a quick tutorial, plus supplies and paint.The outcomes were really quite wonderful, especially as folks realized what they could experiment with.
We were given newspapers to clean our brayers, but I actually liked some of the images in the paper, so tore them out to create collages with my gel printing. You lay the paint down first, so it held the collage items in place. The images plus a length of thread (intended to be used to bind our artwork into small zines) gave me some outcomes that I liked so much, I might frame them! (Mine are the bottom four on the right.)One of my trials didn't match the others, so I gave it to the son of one of the participants—they were both tickled silly and wanted photos.It's so funny how these things just grow and turn into special new things!

To read about my journey in order, follow these links:
01 - Shanghai!
02 - A Mall and Grocery Store
03 - Custom Dress
04 - The Long Museum
05 - The Quay on the Yangtze?
06 - Old City of Shanghai at Huangpu District
07 - Old Shanghai
08 - Dumplings for lunch!
09 - Yu Garden
10 - Storyland
11 - Hot Pot at Cloud Nice Shopping Mall Changning Branch
12 - The China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
13 - Art Exhibitions at the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
14 - Workshop: Gel Printing
15 - The train to Hangzhou
16 - Speaking at China Jiliang University
17 - Hangzhou - Our personal fall-apart party
18 - The Teahouse Garden in Hangzhou
19 - China wrap-up

Art Exhibitions at the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair

There were several illustration exhibitions taking place during the Fair. The first was the Golden Pinwheel Young Illustrators Competition exhibition.Three samples from each illustrator lined this exhibit that was open to the public without having to go into the fair. Here were just a few of my faves:
Gui Huilin from China

Jiomo from China

Natalia Shaloshvili from the UK

Varsam Kurnia from Indonesia

Zhang Yue from China

The lineup of judges was also pretty spectacular. Go HERE to see more artwork - they're truly worth your time!


There was also the Feng Zikai Chinese Children's Book Award show. It was harder to take good photos of these because of the glare on the glass.But each of these pieces was accompanied by the book the artwork was from, which was nice to see.

One other display wasn't exactly an art show, but was rather a presentation of this year's theme books: nonfiction. They were divided into interesting categories such as Inventories, Words and Languages, The Senses, etc. I thought the category labeled "Alice" was especially clever.

To read about my journey in order, follow these links:
01 - Shanghai!
02 - A Mall and Grocery Store
03 - Custom Dress
04 - The Long Museum
05 - The Quay on the Yangtze?
06 - Old City of Shanghai at Huangpu District
07 - Old Shanghai
08 - Dumplings for lunch!
09 - Yu Garden
10 - Storyland
11 - Hot Pot at Cloud Nice Shopping Mall Changning Branch
12 - The China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
13 - Art Exhibitions at the China Shanghai International Children's Book Fair
14 - Workshop: Gel Printing
15 - The train to Hangzhou
16 - Speaking at China Jiliang University
17 - Hangzhou - Our personal fall-apart party
18 - The Teahouse Garden in Hangzhou
19 - China wrap-up