The most beautiful lake

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Wow China is quite the cultural shock. My first meal in China was at the airport in Shenzen and I ordered Noodles with Chicken. What I got was a huge bowl with noodles and all sorts of chicken parts floating around. There were at least one or two whole eggs in there as well. The dish was very flavorful, but I do not like eating parts of chicken that I do not know what they are. Plus the meal was so big, I could hardly eat any of it. I think in China when you eat out you are suppose to order one or two dishes and share with others, but Zara does not eat meat so that is quite hard. Also nobody speaks English, and that is expected but it makes things difficult. We know a little Mandarin but only how to ask "do you speak English".

The flight to Hangzhou was nice, we made it alive. Once at the airport we just followed what our guide book said and took a bus to the center of town. Once there a man ran up to us and asked if we needed help, we did not think we did, but when he said he just wants to help us find a taxi to get where we were going we said OK. I did not think it would be very hard to get a cab and find our hotel, but if we had not met this man we would have had no luck in getting to where we wanted to go at all. It took him about 30 minutes to get a cab, and he had to call the hotel to get the Chinese characters so the driver would know where to go. He was so friendly and even gave us his business card and said if we needed anything else to call him. What a great guy.

We finally arrived at our hotel and it was quite difficult to explain that we had a reservation, but we managed and were led to our room. This hotel designed is like a huge hospital. Chairs in the hallways and people sitting around playing cards. The place smells like mold, our room was no exception. So we tossed our bags down and went in search for dinner.

The first place we went to looked quite fancy and we asked the greeter for a menu, they handed us one and it was all in Chinese. I though to myself, "How are we ever going to eat in this place" but remembering my Mandarin I asked "English" they said no. So we moved on. Next door was a smaller family oriented place, the hostess spoke a little English and asked if I knew Chinese. I said no, and she pulled a menu out in English. We got some good food and were happy with the outcome and price. Zara's dish had eggs in it and these eggs were the size of pigeon eggs. We are not sure what bird they were from, but she said they tasted good. So that was our first day in China.

On day two we decided to see the famed lake. But our first mission was to eat the included breakfast at our hotel. Readers how do you think this turned out. A) we enjoyed our free western style/ Chinese style breakfast B) We missed the buffet so they made us something special from the kitchen C) We never found breakfast, so we walked to the lake and had an overpriced pizza and club sandwich. If you guessed C you were right. We tried to explain to the staff that we wanted to eat and they just pointed. We ended up walking into a place that we thought served breakfast and we showed them the hotel key and they pointed us back to the hotel. We were lost. So we walked until we found a nice cafe and ate pizza and a sandwich. I also ordered LongJin tea, which is famous all over China and grown in this region. At first I really did not like it, but I am quite fond of it now. Here in China tea is made by putting hot water over leaves. It is not in a bag, and when the tea is running low they add more hot water. It is better this way, and the tea is much fresher here.

After breakfast we wondered around the lake area. This place was very hyped by Harry and people that I have talked to on the Internet. The hype is weak compared to the beauty of this place. I was stunned with the landscape, trees, water, architecture, museum, that the lake had to offer. The lotus blossoms are in bloom, these are large water plants with pink flowers. They are magnificent. There are many bridges in the area as well, that are just fun to look at and walk over. It is very hard to describe this place, I hope the pictures speak for it. It is very relaxing and magical. It even rained off and on all day, but that did not hurt the beauty of the West Lake. It is neat to watch the lotus leaves fill up with water and dump into other leaves below them.

Towards dusk the rain really started to come down, so we found a restaurant near by and had some dinner. I ordered Crucian Carp, which is a fish that I am able to catch in Animal Crossing, with sweet and sour sauce. This sweet and sour sauce is not like it is in the States, it is Vinegar based, but very good. The fish was also very good, but you try to pick fish off bone with chop sticks. It is very difficult since there are many bones and eating it was just not very fun. Zara ordered some greens and rice, well we told the waitress to bring her anything without meat and that is what she got. Dinner was good and we slept better that night.

Today we are in a new hotel but still in Hangzhou, It is rainy and a little cold. We may go out on the town in a while. Until next time.

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Photos

Airport Food
This is the bowl of Chicken soup I told you about.

Longjin Tea
this is the famous tea from the region

Museum artifact
It just looks interesting.