Before we hit "the Sunday traffic" of Hangzhou we had the enjoyment of traveling up to 297 KPH on the Bullet train from Shanghai to Hangzhou - wow, what a great experience. Marco Polo once described Hangzhou as the most beautiful and elegant city in the world. Hangzhou was born of an ancient commercial boom and now is a rising metropolis with its own unique blend of natural beauty and historic attractions. We had another amazing sunny warm day here as visited a few major sites, the Lingyin Temple and the West Lake area - I can see why Marco Polo would have made such a statement given the time when he ventured out on the Spice Route so many years ago.
Lingyin Temple, was originally built by an Indian Monk. The temple has been restored many times by the ancient dynasties and now stands as one of the largest and most visited Buddhist temples in China. This temple is surrounded by forested hills and is a quiet and sheltered sanctuary for soothing the soul. Today was Sunday and many "domestic" tourists would make their pilgrimages to this most impressive Buddhist temple, as you can see we were invited to participate in the ritual of burning incense. Although crazy busy, we just went along and it was a wonderful peaceful experience.
Lunch was quick at a family owned and operated tea plantation restaurant, we were asked what we would like and this included chicken soup. We did not know it was going to be chick in the soup - we are talking a the full chicken here as you can see. They bring it to you table and present it, they then take chopsticks and rip it apart. It took me a while to get comfortable with it but I did try some and I will say it was delicious (and no I did not nor did anyone in our group have the actual head or feet).
West Lake is beautiful as it is surrounded by mountains near and far, serene forests with dense foliage. We took a small boat over to an island in the middle of the lake, just beautiful with its tranquil and delicately designed Chinese gardens, babbling brooks and zigzag bridges. We met a few Tibetan Monks in the gardens that happened to rejoin us on the boat - they were not familiar with seeing us at they took as many photos of us as we did of them. We shared a few laughs even though we could not speak each others languages - this was a major highlight and one that I will cherish always. BTW - the three water pagodas here are the one depicted on the, "One Yuan" bank note.
The only unfortunate part of the day landed squarely in the hands of Mr. Hu (pronounced, wu) as he was nowhere to be seen as we returned to his van at 5:20, ah we had to catch a 6:00 train (yes, he knew this). We were already cutting it a bit tight as he had already made a few bad decisions throughout our time with him. Long story short, we arrived at the train station at 6:10, so yes, the train had already come and gone. A mad scramble later as well as at a different train station, we were on the next high speed train to Shanghai at 9:38, so three and half hours later - no tip for Mr. Hu. Jeff is writing a letter to SAT China. This is all part of travel but it does effect many people, mainly our guide and driver in Shanghai, who was there at 11:00 to pick us up.
All in all a great day. For all you first time travelers out there following this, you get aggressive with your touring and time schedules when you know the ship is on an overnight. Yes, we lost a few hours but we did have full days experience in Hangzhou and the ship and our familiar bed were waiting for us as we returned, so all good.
Hope you enjoy our day two pictures of Hangzhou...
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