Hangzhou II

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Since we didn't have too much time for my friend to see many places in China, we decided to do a day trip when we were in Shanghai. I said either Hangzhou or Suzhou would be good destinations as they are both popular destinations with plenty to see and do and they are both close to Shanghai. My friend chose Hangzhou, so I booked the train tickets and we headed there early in the morning. The train took about an hour and after getting the subway, we were in downtown Hangzhou. Our first port of call was Starbucks for coffees and breakfast. We got seats by the window and got to watch the world go by as we ate and drank. Then we followed the crowds down to West Lake.

West Lake was swarmed with people. We should have been used to it after Beijing, but it was still frustrating. We headed down to the lake and took a look at the views across the lake. It was nice, but not spectacular. The views were a bit murky, I am not sure whether it was pollution or that it just always looks like this. There were quite a few squirrels running up and down the trees near the lakes and we had fun watching them for a while.There were also some kids dancing, so we watched them. They were really good and I was impressed. We also some older people playing traditional intruments, which was nice, too.

One funny thing that happened while we were walking around was a girl in front of me had a selfie stick and I could see that she was lining up to take the picture with me in the background, subtle as a sledgehammer. So I dodged out of the shot. I don't think she was very impressed, but she wasn't going to give up, so asked me if I would be in a picture with her and her pals. I politely declined as I really didn't feel like faking pretending to be interested and one of her pals seemed mortally offended and asked why. She looked so put out when I responded that I simply didn't want to. Seriously, people in China need to stop staring at us foreigners like we are exhibits is zoo. Sometimes it is just too much. Anyway, rant over.

We followed the route around the edge of the lake. We came to the area, which has a few shops, cafes and restaurants. I really wanted to go to 'Grandma's House', which is a famous chain restaurant in China. I thought it would be a good choice for my friend to try more Chinese food as it has all the staples and is really good and pretty cheap. However, the queues were massive even at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We nixed that idea and headed to Starbucks for a coffee instead. Then continued our walk around the lake. My friend was gutted that all the grass was roped off so we couldn't sit on it, we had to make do with a few benches that we came across.

We had had enough of West Lake and we came to the entrance/exit that I had used last time I came, so I mentioned to my friend's that there was a pedestrianised shopping street about ten minutes walk away and said we could head there. My friend agreed so we set off in that direction. We came across about a million pushbikes all piled up. They are the ones that you can rent and my friend found it amazing to see so many bikes in one place. It reminded me of that song, but substitute Hangzhou for Beijing. The shopping street was utterly rammed and we had to dodge millions of people. We had a look around some of the shops. There were so many nice things to buy, but I resisted. The area was too hetic, so we decided to make our way back to the train station and wait for our train.

Back at the station in Shanghai, we were hungry so headed to KFC as there was one close by. While we were in there, this really weird bloke came in, he wandered around all the tables, looking about and I instinctively felt he was up to no good so made sure my stuff was in my hands and not lying about. He then proceeded to the sink at the back of the store and after drinking some tap water started trying to climb the walls. I don't know if he had mental health issues or was off his face on drugs, but the staff did nothing. They were useless and eventually the bloke wandered off out of the shop. Totally random! We headed back to the hostel, where we decided to have a few drinks in the bar as it was still early and the beer was cheap and cold.

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