Blogs from Hangzhou , China, Asia - page 28

I know it's not October holidays yet, but here is a wonderful week-end in China. Leslie didn't have school on Friday, so we decided to do a little getaway trip. Since the 1st of April 2008, my life...and the one of Leslie have changed since we met Ma'ri...nearly already 6 months. Just moved together in "la maison du bonheur", but we didn't had the opportunity to hit the road together yet. So here it is...our first great family trip. Shanghai is so polluted these days, that which ever trip out is a great welcome. The Fuchun Resort is 40 minutes out of Hangzhou...not far away enough from the pollution, but way better than home already. So on Friday morning, we took the train for the short ride. My first train trip in China, but not ... read more

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 ?? ? 4 (china diaries 4) Category: Travel and Places They say Hangzhou is the most beautiful place in China, although I haven't been to other places apart from Beijing, my experience here has been nothing lower then that standard or expectation. West Lake...........The last that I left off, I said we took a trip to the lake and I was to write about it after I got some sleep. Well, apart from the constant gloom of the weather, it's an absolute serene scene to see this peacefully large lake that Hangzhou resides around. We took a boat around to observe the sites around the lake, it was and is such a drastic change from Beijing. There are some nice parts of Beijing, but the area we were in was mediocre. ... read more

Even though we had to get up at the unearthly hour of 3am to catch our flight from Mumbai to Hong Kong, I was so relieved to be leaving for somewhere we could walk down the street without being harrassed or horrified that I was almost upbeat. It was Ross' 28th birthday, meaning he was more than just upbeat, he was positively excited. At 3am. The flight was uneventful, other than me surreptitiously taking photos out the plane window. Is this allowed? I've never seen anyone do it before. I was slightly paranoid my camera would somehow interfere with the workings of the plane and we would end up doing an emergency landing in whatever sea surrounds Hong Kong (I had hoped my geography would improve but apparently not). Anyway, I took a couple of photos ... read more

Wow, I just finished up a whirlwind time in Hangzhou. This place is known for its lakes, with it’s biggest one called the Wu Xi Lake. The first afternoon we got there, we barely saw the lake, and only by accident. We decided to head over to their bustling night market to see what interesting, realistic fake goods and janky street food we could buy. There weren’t any fake goods and the actual goods were a little pricey by Chinese standards. Not much bargaining was to be had there. We saw a giant pagoda at the top of the hill, and our instinct to hike kicked in. Even though the roads were fairly paved, night hikes are a wee bit frightening. But we were rewarded with an excellent view; and, to our surprise, the pagoda was ... read more

I've got to say that it's not easy to keep up with this blog, especially when my typing skills are hopeless. Been doing a fair bit of walking and sightseeing around Hangzhou over the last 2 days and they say a photo speaks a thousand words so I thought I would just add a few photos and write about them. A few observations though; Traffic can best be described as fluid motion, if there is a gap that is physically big enough for a bike/car/bus to fit into then you can expect that a bike/car/bus will flow into that gap. Lanes or direction of traffic are not important and a metre of clearance is a metre wasted! The same goes for pedestrians on the road - pedestrian crossing or not. Tourists - We have been in ... read more