the last month pt1

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So now im in beijing and have been literally spending my time seeing some amazing sights so this is the first of a few entries that will go in the blog. When i left you last I was in Hangzhou , So i suppose I should start there. Well a little history about this town is that many towns in China have a lake called the west lake , but this is the original one , and it it absolutely beautiful. although it is half man made from the old marsh lands that an emporer had dredged up and the lake was formed. It is an amazing place to head out for a bit of the old mixed in with a bit of the new. There are many tourist sights here to see and although usually I try to stay away from that sort of thing, it was hard not to when there was so much history there.

My first sight was of course the west lake and I didn't really know what to expect but when I got there although it was fairly cold it was a wonder to take in. We , ( me and Becca my girlfreind)walked around the lake and found some little stores that turned out to be a Haagen daz and a starbucks. We went to the haagen daz to see the chinese take on it and I was shocked with what I saw. Where I come from and where i travel to usually get an ice cream store that is quite small and has a small selection of ice cream and you leave once you buy it. Well in china you sit down and a servercomes over to take your order and gives you a menu the size of the great wall itself. So we has our ice cream and set off to whatch the sunset over the lake. One thing with china, but either from its position in the world or just the pollution levels the sun sets as a perfect orange ball most of the time so watching this was a spectacular event in my eyes.

The next sight I saw on my trip was Leifung pagoda. This is a fairly new pagoda built on the sight of the original which was around 1000 years old until after a fire it was ruined and fell down. this new pagoda kept the charm of traditional chinese culture as to what you would expect as a foreigner to see in china. it also told the story of why the original pagoda had come to be there as a prison for a God that had laid war to the other gods. This story is told by huge very detailed wooden carvings on the wall. You can spend an awful lot of time here and once again as it is by the west lake is an awesome place to take in the sunset.

Another great place to see in Hangzhou has got to be hefang street. This is an old typical 1800's style street which has now unfortunatley given in to tourism and started to sell what can only be desribed as crap. there are still some stores which are worth a look but i would only go to see the architechture and not have your hopes of finding anything too awe inspiring. but still worth a look. When we had managed to walk from the old part of Hangzhou we had strayed into the new part which had stylish buildings and very stylish stores to go inside them, the highlight of the evening has to be the fountain show on the westlake. It is actually better than the Bellagio's show in vegas. So much effort was put into this show and the music and water that danced with it was fantastic. although there was much more to see in Hangzhou i'm glad I left some of it out as it gives me a chance to go back to this wonderful city.

Next stop ........ Shanghai !!!!!!

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Photos

sunset at leifung pagoda
beautiful

sunset
west lake sunsets are always amazing

water show
the show on the lake

Comments

[Laury Wooden]

I thought the 1st photo of the sunset from the Leifung Pagoda was a professional travel phots on the website! It's lovely! And thank you for such detailed descriptions. For all the readers of Toni's blog, below is a youtube link for the West Lake Music Fountain in Hangzhou. He's right, it is quite amazing, but it's best if you mute it to block out the chatter of the viewers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yku3fsDTYOE