Oh what a Lake

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West Lake in Hangzhou is “the” original lake, there are many others in China but this is the real one.

There are excellent English/Chinese maps of the lake and its surroundings to be bought for 5Yuan, although not quite to scale for a few of the sights, it does give you an excellent idea of what to see.

Or you could just wander and find things along the way. It is 15kms along the whole perimeter of the lake, and we think about 10 kms if you use the short cut of the causeway.
There are excellent “walking streets” along the whole lakeshore, manicured paths, gardens, beautiful bridges, pagodas and boardwalks. Teahouses and restaurants abound along its shore and gardens but they are only open from 9am to about 5pm, so if you want to eat out for dinner you need to find a place that will be nearby but not quite on the lake.

We found quite a few night time places from an excellent Indian place complete with belly dancers and hot spicy Indian food, to an up market Chinese place cooking traditional Hangzhou food, to a tiny family run place where we were the only customers with tasty food; this was all 10 minutes walk from our hostel.

There is even an area called Xihu Tiandi, which is a mini version of Xintiandi, which you can find in the French concession in Shanghai. It’s a group of coffee places, shops, art galleries and restaurants that are trendy and have great western coffee; we had a great coffee at Costa’s Coffee and an excellent breakfast of an omelet in a baguette at a Spanish restaurant called Jamaica's.

The whole area is lit up during the night and it’s extremely safe to walk around at any time.

The whole of China seemed to be there celebrating New Year with us, thousands were on all walkways and paths.
Public singing with a small amp and microphone, and people accompanying on traditional instruments was enjoyed by the older generation.
Whole families walked and ate and enjoyed each other’s company, hardly a mobile phone or hand held game was to be seen.

You can hire paddleboats, go on a larger cruise boat or a smaller boat for a cruise to the islands nearby, cycle along the bike paths on the roads around the edge of the lake, or just meander along the paths.

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Photos

West Lake
night time was when we first saw the lake and the surroundings

West Lake
Beautifully lit trees and paths

West Lake
Fantastic detail on the walking streets

West Lake
looking up inside a pegoda

West Lake
So artistic

West Lake
the Belly dancer at Ocar's for New Years Eve

West Lake
She captivated the audience

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the large coffee at Costa's, enough for any coffee fix

West Lake
Inside decor of Costa's coffee which is an chaini of Italien coffee shops which started off in Shanghai, nice coffee normal price of 30Y for a cup

West Lake
the walking streets with little tour buses that can give you a ride if you are feeling too lazy

West Lake
Winter sunshine and bare trees which are all painted in white up to about shoulder height on the trunk

West Lake
lovely board walks

West Lake
Pagoda's a plenty, Leifang is the large one in the distance

West Lake
not sure how these bloom after some of the frosts we had but they do

West Lake
There are various types of boats to take you on the lake if you wanted

West Lake
a larger boat for a more sedate cruise

West Lake
Karl and some random in front of yet another pagoda

West Lake
There were huge crowds on all walkways, exercise is something all chinese seem to enjoy

West Lake
love these little plants which we dubbed the cauliflower plants, they really do look like them and seem to thrive in the 0 degree temperatures

West Lake
Instructions on what to do and what not to do

West Lake
another instruction