Hangzhooooooouuuuuu!

The train ride itself was not long - maybe 2 hours or so - but it was definitely enough time to catch a few winks of sleep (as we did on basically every train; you have to take it when you can get it, you know...) By 0900hr we had clambered off the surprisingly modern train (more modern than any I had come across in Vietnam anyway), through the mass of people pushing to exit the station and were lugging all our worldly possessions towards the hostel a couple of kms away. Famished having not eaten any breakfast, we enjoyed the hostel's buffet breakfast for a few bucks immensely before catching a taxi to the train station in order to book onward tickets to our next planned stop, Xi'an. Unfortunately, the train we had wanted was booked out and so our time in Hangzhou had to be cut short by one night.
Hangzhou has two faces - there's the city and then there's the small settlement nearby the area's centrepiece which is where we spent our time. The pretty side of Hangzhou is based around the famous West Lake (Xi Hu) which actually used to be a lagoon before it was dredged in the 8th century by order of the governor. I didn't realise they had the technology for dredging back then..? Since then, the lake and its surroundings have been beautified with gardens, man-made islands and pagodas. Today, the lake has been personified as a young woman whose beauty was enhanced by her elegant dress, and Hangzhou has become a very popular getaway for folks from Shanghai and further afield.
Our first day was spent mainly in the area northwest of the lake, firstly at a mausoleum of a 12th-century General - which we both found quite uninteresting - and then in the Yellow Dragon Cave park. We climbed the mountain hoping to find the stone dragon head that is supposed to be at the summit, however we didn't come across it somehow. Instead we settled for a photo of the view over the massive lake which was almost entirely obscured by fog (or possibly smog).
On our way back down, we saw a tea field or two and a teahouse situated at the top of several flights of steps leading from the main path. We were intrigued by the sound of a small group practising their traditional Chinese singing and this lead us up a wrong set of steps. At the top was a group of people going about their business, practising Tai Chi and playing Chinese chess, all in front of what looked to be a makeshift place of worship embedded in the rockface. We felt as though we were intruding on their area in some way and so thought best that we find the teahouse for some 2nd class Chinese "dragon" tea (yes, we were a bit stingy and figured that the more expensive 1st class tea would taste exactly the same to our untrained palates - and it really did just taste like green tea). Still quite a cool experience to say that we experienced tea in a teahouse on a mountain in China :)
We stopped off to buy a couple of packet noodles for lunch at a convenience store. They actually made it for us which was pretty neat, mainly because they could see we had no idea what to do with all of the sachets. Now now, don't judge til you've seen some of the complicated packets you can buy here.. These particular ones contained self-boiling water!
Mid-afternoon was Lingyin Temple time, although we didn't actually get to see the temple but instead explored its lovely gardens and caves. The main highlights here are the Buddhist carvings in the limestone caves and rockfaces lining the path leading upto the temple. There is even a large laughing Buddha here to which we witnessed a monk paying homage. That evening, after catching a bus back to town, we felt like some Japanese food and so ate at the Ajisen Ramen diner in the food strip on the lake's eastern side.
The following morning I hired a bicycle to ride around the lake while Lee took a wander around the area. I came across Tai Chi, kite flying, multiple weddings, stunning scenery, groups of school children, a sea of cyclists, and a few people who really wanted to have their photos taken with me while I read my book in a lakeside park. On my way to meet Lee after all of this excitement, I was almost hit by a car that refused to stop for me as I crossed the road at a pedestrian crossing - I've been informed that you shouldn't make eye contact with the driver because then they'll know you've seen that they're coming and will actually speed up! Ridiculous..
After a bit of searching we came across Chinese fast food up a small staircase. We had no idea what was on the menu in this obscure yet busy establishment and so had to ask the manager to assist us in ordering our lunch. Always fun trying to order food when no-one can understand each other.. Turns out it was a great choice though and we thoroughly enjoyed the rice and chicken dish we received.
Dairy Queen Ice cream! You can only crave ice cream for so long before you cave and today was one of those days.. We had an interesting conversation with a woman who was looking after a group of international primary school students. Her husband is contracted for another year to an American company based in Hangzhou but she just can't wait to get out of China.. Now that would suck. During our conversation she suggested that we should not miss Hangzhou's "Old Street" - basically an old pedestrian street lined with stores and makeshift puppet theatres - so we hailed a taxi to spend our last hour or so there before catching the train back to Shanghai for the evening.

Photos:

just in case we become airborne?

painting

cup-a-dragon tea

the monk and the Buddha

one of the guys was kind enough to let me hold his kite.. pretty neat

Xi Hu

bridges across the northern side of the lake

right place at the right time

random guy wanting my photo :)