Romantic West Lake of Hangzhou

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Arrival, Day 1

Hanzhou (pronounced like Han joe) was not originally on our itinerary. We had to fly in and out of Tokyo/Narita (Skymiles) from/to home so we had to get to Japan from China somehow. We had tentatively planned Beijing -> Xian -> Guilin -> Hong Kong -> Tokyo. My aunt lived in Guilin and had helped us with a hotel and plans for the two nights we would be there but we would have had to leave Xian the day we arrived and the worst part was from Hong Kong -> Japan, around $550pp flight (one-way!) and it would have been an all day ordeal so at the last minute we re-did the trip to go from Xian to Hangzhou as it was on the way to Shanghai (for our flight to Japan) and save Guilin and Hong Kong for another trip.

Our flight to Hangzhou was only 10 minutes late. Through a co-workers wife's friend who's friend of theirs (yes, confusing) is a tour operator. They picked us up we had a private tour for that day and the next and booked us in a hotel overlooking the West Lake, trip to Shanghai and a hotel in Shanghai as well.

We primarily stayed in and around the West Lake the time we were there. The lake is quite famous in China, the honeymoon capital, we saw plenty of brides and grooms in our hotel and around the lake the short time we were there. The back of the yuan (equivalent of the dollar) contains an image of this lake. Our assigned tour guide, Collin(?) was just out of college he attended in Shanghai and returned home to Hangzhou where he preferred to live. Collin I have to say was not the best tour guide I've ever had. He was friendly and courteous but didn't seem to have a real interest or enthusiasm in the local history and culture and that's what I'm most interested in. He and Kelly got to talking about pop culture (TV, movies, Hollywood) or his favorite sport to watch: the NBA. He never seemed to get tired of talking about those things. At times he would walk so fast we barely had time to stop and enjoy seeing places where we were visiting, he finally got a clue when he had to return and look for us a time or two.

Our first stop was the Traditional Chinese Medicine Museum. The architecture was quite interesting and was still active in that there were doctors nearby that would provide prescriptions and there were actively being filled. We didn't spend much time here, maybe 15 minutes top as we hadn't yet figured out how to slow our tour guide down. We drove around the lake and made our way to the Mei Jia Wu Tea Garden. The scenery was fantastic, it had been raining/sprinkling all day so the humidity was quite high and in the mountains were covered in mist. The stop at the Tea Garden, while picturesque was another tourist trap there to sell you tea, though considered the best green tea in China. I was already sold, I had planned on buying some anyhow but would have liked to hear more about how they grow it, harvest it, prepare it etc but instead they put on a little show about it's medicinal properties and the different blends they had and it's quality. Everyone appears to drink tea in China, our tour guide, taxi drivers, tour drivers, they all have large plastic drink cups, clear but tinted in a variety of colors with tea that they drank on all day. We bought our tea, took us back to the hotel and said good buy until the next day.

Our first night there were wandered around the east side of the lake near the hotel, watched a light show with water fountains over the lake set to classical Chinese music.

Day 2

Collin came back to meet us in the morning and we started by going around the lake again. It was a Monday morning as we drove around the south side of the lake and passed the Liefeng Pagoda. Collin waved us off saying it was new and not culturally interesting and the waves of tourists getting off the large limousine buses convinced us to keep going.

We were supposed to take a boat ride on the lake but the ticket office was only selling (large) group tours, we were out of luck. The crowds around this part of the lake convinced us we didn't want to get on the large boats leaving this part anyhow, the views would have been of other tourists on the boat, not the lake itself. We went north along the causeway that cuts through the lake enjoying the walk along the path, over a few bridges taking in the scenery and watching the fishermen.

Our next stop was the Lingyin temple founded in 328AD. It was ordered by Mao to be destroyed during the cultural revolution but was spared by the local in charge though he did expel the monks who resided there. The stone carvings in the rock wall, the temples and incense were all very interesting. We spent a couple hours here going through the many temples - this is where we let Collin know he's have to slow down or leave us.

Not having an agenda lined up - relying the private tour and Collin to plan our day he ran out of ideas close to lunch. He came up with an idea to take us to the provincial museum located on an island on the lake. It wasn't that interesting, I'm not surprised it wasn't on our tour book. They dropped us off at our hotel and we decided to explore on our own. After lunch we booked our own boat ride out to another island the middle of the lake to view the "Three pools mirroring the lake". The lake itself would be better to ride around by bike, too large to walk and so many different places to see as we passed by in the car I wish we had time to ride around. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the lake, ate dinner and generally people watched.

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Links

Link to Kodak Gallery Photos.


Video West Lake, Hangzhou (YouTube). Resolution can be changed to 720 (HD).

Video West Lake, Hangzhou, Light Show .

Video West Lake, Hangzhou, Light Show 2 .

Video West Lake, Hangzhou, Light Show 3 .

Video Lingyin Temple, Hangzhou .

Video Lingyin Temple, Hangzhou 2 .

Video West Lake, Hangzhou 2 .

Video West Lake, Hangzhou 3 .

Video West Lake, Hangzhou 4 .

Video West Lake, Hangzhou 5 .

Video West Lake, Hangzhou 6 .

Video West Lake, Hangzhou (Boat Ride) .

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