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Published: February 5th 2008
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At Shanghai station
H and her student Sun Xing who took the same train as us. And the next piece they will perform on the platform is Mozart's Duet for 2 Chinese musicians, K.181, duration 16 mins 19 secs. We went to Shanghai South Railway Station early on Sunday morning to try to get tickets to the picturesqueueue city of Hangzhou. You may have seen on the news that some Chinese stations are aflood with masses of anxious travellers these days, and that in some places the trains just cannot travel because of the snow. Happily for us tourists, and unhappily for the poor unfortunates elsewhere, there were no such problems in Shanghai. The army has been called in to all the major stations, and the masses are flooding through Shanghai station in the most orderly fashion imaginable. The place is like a modern, high-tech airport, and the little-boy soldiers were all smiley and cheery as they pointed us in the right direction. The train was as comfortable as any German equivalent and eased us to Hangzhou in a little over an hour.
The Train Trip to Hangzhou in Shanghaiambic zentameter
While Wang Hailing dozed on the train to Hangzhou (Pron. Hong Joe)
Roisin looked out and admired the snow
The deep yellow sun blushed a little bit red
As it spied on the land in its white-duveted bed
And charging along like troops into battle
I looked
from the train for the horses and cattle (cheque in post)
There in the fields they were, gone, to be witnessed
Must all have been off at horse camp getting fitnessed
Hailing and the sun both tipped o'er the horizon
Both with great ease and without realisin'
That while they adjourned to respective night cradles
The lunar ensemble tuned 10,000 ladles
Each with 9 strings tuned to A=450
('tis as well that the loony moon tuner is nifty)
But back to the present, 'tis daylight, 'tis, still
And the snow is well-settled on each window sill
And nestled untouched on each curly-up roof
(which Rudolf would love to imprint with his hoof)
Now snow and white twilight cannot be distinguished
The border of land and sky each has relinquished
Suddenly, though, away off to the right
A Spring Festival firework shatters the white
And just for a moment the sky comes alive
But now I stop rhyming: the train has arrived.
Hangzhou is a beautiful place. We stayed at the Chinese equivalent of an Ibis hotel, at the Chinese price of 19 euro for the room, including 2 toothbrushes and the 2 cutest little packets of toothpaste. After arriving
we strolled to the West Lake, in the heart of the city, the tranquil centrepiece of Hangzhou, and slithered along the icy shore. Unfortunately the scenery of Hangzhou is intertwined with every western designer boutique you do not want to meet in a Chinese beauty spot, but it's still gorgeous. The following day we toured around the lake, taking a bus to a big Buddhist temple, where I watched the Chinese visitors burn incense and put their petitions to the Buddhas of every shape and size, from miniature to gigigigigigantic. We passed monks studying texts - on their mobiles that is, and many temples with lavishly decorated statues. It was serene in the extreme, and I was a conspiqueuous and solitary foreigner. We then bussed ourselves to the picturesqueueue tea-growing village of Longjing, all covered with snow, and followed that with a boat trip on the lake..a Chinese gondola, at 1/6 of the price of its Italian cousin. See the photos. I love this place and I want to go again, nuff said.
Today I embarked with my guidebook AND MY BRILLIANT NEW CAMERA!! on my first solitary excursion in this vast but surprisingly coverable metwopolis. The Shanghai metro
is totally tourist-friendly, though the stations do feature a little Shanghaiperactivity, and the street signs are written in both Chinese characters and pinyin. I took a turn about the People's Park, a little snatch of greenery almost drowned by the surrounding skyscrapers. I didn't see any Shanghaibiscus, but perhaps it's out of season, or out of town, or out of order, or out of sight, or just out of milk, or even out of the goodness of its heart. I skipped in and around the big shopping street Nanjing Road, taking a peep at the slightly more Chinese side streets. I hopped along as far as the riverside, the so-called Bund, where the buildings on one side look like they arrived ready-made on a boat from Europe, and on the other side as if they are each striving to be the tallest. I slithered along the river walk, which is for some unknown reason constructed from the slippiest available material - evidently the compo culture has not hit Shanghai yet - and was rather surprised to find myself close to the beauuuutiful Yu gardens area. See the photos for evidence that the Chinese really know how to do New Year
decorations. Shpectacular.
Dinner with Hailing and Jacqueline in a very interesting restaurant - a Uigher restaurant, with food and staff and dancing from a western and predominantly Muslim Chinese province called Xinjiang. The people do not look at all Chinese, much more like their neighbours to the west. Apparently the staple food is lamb. We had lamb with everything on it.
Just one more day in Shanghai, the New Year's Eve, with food and fireworks, then off to Xi'an on Thursday morning, in the Year of the Rat. I will definitely come here again...so much more still to see and do, and sure I'll have to reShanghaidrate myself. Photos to follow.
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Sarah Robinson
non-member comment
Oh it all sounds so amazing! Enjoy your last hours with Hailing. x