Hangzhou, China – March 24 – Part I

I started to write this post on Friday. This morning I finished the writing. When I went back to enter the photographs, everything that I had written in the morning had disappeared. I am not sure what happened, but two hours worth of writing is gone. To say that I am frustrated would be an understatement. Therefore, you will receive this post in two parts. That is actually something that I had considered doing anyway since this post is so long. It will give you something to look forward to next week.

Warning. This post is image heavy. Overall, Douglas and I took over 500 pictures this day, and I was able to narrow those down to 185 of the best shots. I will try to cut out a few more, but it is hard to do because they are all so pretty! Hangzhou was the most beautiful place we visited in China. We left our hotel in Shanghai at 7:00 a.m. in order to leave for Hangzhou. We took a G-class train. I do not know what a G-class train is, but that is what the guide book calls them. These trains leave regularly from Shanghai’s Hongqiao Railway Station, and the trip takes about an hour. It is a fast train but was not as fast as the bullet train I took in Japan. I spent the hour taking pictures out of the window. This pictures are a little blurry because the train was moving quickly, but I wanted you to see the countryside. I was impressed by the size of the power line towers. Do they look incredibly large to you? I also liked that most of the towns that we saw had waterways through them. Upon arriving at the Hangzhou Station, we boarded a tour bus. Here are the photos of things that caught my attention along the ride. The street lights were beautiful. I regret not seeing them at night. I would love to see what they look like all lit up. Our destination was the West Lake. Guess how it received its name. This is the lake that makes Hangzhou such a popular destination popular with poets and emperors as well as tourists. At the lake we first rented bicycles to ride along the Su Causeway which crosses the lake. We only rode about halfway across before turning around and riding back. I did enjoy watching Douglas ride this little pink bike. It was problematic, and none of the students could control it. In fact there were problems with several of the bikes, so it was a good thing that we had our own private bicycle mechanic along with us. In the middle of the Causeway, we stopped to see the view and take some pictures. It did not take long before I climbed a tree. Soon, Douglas was in the tree as well. Then, all of the students climbed the tree after us. Unfortunately, we could not stay long and had to go back the way we came. I arrived back to the bike rental shop with the first group of students. While we were waiting for the rest of the group, I took pictures of some things that caught my eye, particularly cute kids and puppies. Our guides surprised us by buying us all flowers to put in our hair. It made it a lot easier to spot people in our group. Our flowers also drew a lot of attention from the Chinese people. We had people taking our picture throughout the trip, but we had never had a crowd like this before. After the bicycle ride, we rented a couple of boats for a quick tour around the south side of West Lake. You can see the city in the distance along the eastern shore of the lake. Our boat had some trouble getting back under the bridge below the Causeway and crashed into the rocks before going through. On the walk back to the bus, I enjoyed the gardens beside the lake. The group kept leaving me behind when I would stop to take pictures.

From there we went to lunch before continuing on to the Lingyin Temple and Longjing Village. That part of the post will be published next Monday. If you would like to read any of my other posts about China or other travels, visit the Travel tab at the top of the page, or click here.