Dragon Boat Racing

I'd previously written about the frustration of celebrating Dragon Boat Festival and none of the students bothering about the Dragon Boats,and the reason for the festival.  They were only interested in eating the food that is part of the celebration.

As it turns out, I'd been invited by the Director of our department to go to her place at Ningbo, for the afternoon, and later I was advised we'd be staying overnight, and going to some tourist spots.

It was a great surprise to find that we were also going on a Dragon Boat!!!!  Whoopeeeee!!!

We found ourselves at Dongqian Lake and after a barbeque lunch, our group piled onto a dragon boat for 30 minutes of the smooth waters of the lake.  With one of the staff members pounding on the drum, and the rest of us trying hard to paddle, we did a circuit of the lake and were called in before our time was up as there was to be an "official race".

We stood and watched teams prepare - and four boatloads went out to the flags at the other side fo the lake and they had a frantic race to the finish. 

It was all quite exciting.  However, we did not see all the races as we had another journey planned for us that afternoon.

It was the day before Dragon Boat Festival, but now I've been on a Dragon Boat twice, and both  times it was enjoyable.  Lots of fun.