Hangzhou

So on Saturday I took a trip to Hangzhou with my host sister. We won't mention what happened on Friday night, but lets just say I was a little tired when I met her at the train station. This station, might I add, was super cool. For a picture, click here. The space was really open and new, and proved that Chinese railway stations don't have to be gross, dark, and cramped.

So I slept on the two hour ride over there, and we got into Hangzhou just before noon. The main attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake, which is known for being pretty and nice to walk around. We caught a bus there and began our walk. It was sunny and just enjoying the scenery made me feel at peace. We grabbed lunch, which consisted of a few dumplings (like five) and continued walking. It was somewhat crowded, but surprisingly non-touristy. All these boats were moored along the edges of the lake, a lot of them just little 6-person rowboat type things, and some were big 30-foot wood-paneled enclosed barges. It was all decorated to look like old China. One of the main scenic attractions of Hangzhou are the lotus flowers. Everywhere along the lake are huge bunches of lilly pads, and you can spy out the large, pink flowers within. Both Tian Jing and I took lots of pictures (I'll put links to the pictures up soon).

So since it is a very long walk along the lake, one popular activity is to rent a bicycle for about 5 RMB an hour and bike instead. We were going to do that until up on a hill I spotted a tall, thin tower. I decided that we were going to hike up to that tower instead and see what it was. Tian Jing said that though she had been to Hangzhou several times she had never gone up to that tower because it wasn't very famous. So I decided we had to go, because I wouldn't be me unless I wanted to go to the not famous places more than the famous ones (did that make sense? I'm a little low on sleep...).

We found a map and tracked down the road that led to this tower. We walked up it a bit until we ran into a big gate (ouch!) and a very wide, grand set of stairs. Taking swigs from our waterbottles we began our climb up, and up, and up. By the time we got to the top we weren't exactly energetic enough to look up, so only after resting did we manage to lift our heads and see what we had found. We were on the top of a wooded hill at the base of a five story gray brick tower. The tower was pretty, although we couldn't enter into it, and that alone was worth the hike. To add to it, as we were on top of a large hill, we had a great view of the lake on one side and the downtown city of Hangzhou on the other.

The top of the hill had a path, so we took it and in a minute found ourselves on a narrow path up some rocks between two boulders each the size of a small house. It was chaotic getting through that path, as there was only enough room for one to go by at a time, and you couldn't quite see who was around the corner coming the other way, and by the time it was our turn to go through the little path we had quite a large crowd behind us. But that part was neat too.

Being experimental, on the other side of the narrow path we took a different route down the hill, figuring that if we kept heading in the right direction (aka down) we would eventually return to the lake. Although there were a lot of bugs biting us, we got to see some treats on the way down. We saw a gecko, which was awesome! Tian Jing had never seen one before and was so confused about what it was, and the way it spread its fingers so wide to grip on to things was cool. As if that weren't enough, we began to hear insanely large amounts of buzzing in the air and tried to place it. Eventually it became apparent that there were these large bugs flying through the air with almost two inch wingspans and about an inch long. Some were on a tree, and we noticed that they were almost neon green, and then that they were beetles. They were huge and really beautiful. The last cool wildlife we saw were these little lizards about three or four inches long. They were really thin, thinner than earthworms, and had these dinky little legs. I would never have noticed them except for their iridescent blue tails. So pretty! Why they have bright blue tails I cannot for the life of me figure out, and I also have no clue how they stay alive during the winter. Hangzhou is no tropical paradise, in the winter it snows a fair amount, but in the summer they are allowed their tropical animal life, I suppose. And there was the super cool yellow and black striped centipede. Sorry, forgot about that one.

Near the bottom we saw a large garden and courtyard house that was open to the public, so we went in. We were the only ones there except for a groundskeeper, and it was this beautiful, well-kept house with absolutely no furniture in it and a verdant garden with sculpture, ponds, rocks, and all. It was simple, but really pretty.

The rest of the day we exhausted ourselves walking until our feet bled, eating ice cream, getting nodded at by the foreign man in the ferrari, and listening to a community choir practice opera (aahh! run away!). We got home exhausted, but it was fun to see a new city and it really helped relax me. I hadn't realized how tense I was and how much I missed sunlight until getting to Hangzhou and having all the time in the world and spending it in good company. I got home and felt better about the world, and Danielle came into town the next morning for the week. Hopefully I'll write about her being here next time, and probably something about my trip to Beijing on Friday.

Links to photos:
Hangzhou Photos on Facebook