Walking in Hangzhou

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After our fun few days in Shanghai, we took the bus to Hangzhou, the "number 1" tourist city of China. Before I start, I just want to say that we quickly noticed how loud Chinese people speak. Seriously, one would think they're in a fight or something. Just sitting in this Internet room (in which we had to give our passports, interesting) two guys are screaming at each other so we all turned around and guess what? They're sitting right next to each other!! Anyways, we checked into our hotel and thanked Dave for finding yet another nice hotel. We went out towards the lake for dinner and found a Korean restaurant! That was exciting since we'd had it in Shanghai and realized how much we missed it! So we went in and shocked the owner when we ordered in Korean. The food was very good and the service even better! It felt good being able to communicate, if even for a moment. Spent the rest of the night wandering around the lake and having dessert at DQ (my favorite ice cream of all time). Woke up the next day to search for our next destination since our visa situation is pretty tight and complicated (to make the story short, we're in China for 34 days on a 30 day visa and they're really strict on visas nowadays). Had to go all over the city because no one spoke English but found a travel agency with a friendly guy to help us out. Ended up booking a flight to Beijing and are now planning to make our way South to Hong Kong(which wasn't in our original itinerary). That being settled, we made our way to the West Lake and walked around it for two and half hours before reaching the Leifeng Pagoda. It was a really nice walk and the padoga was gorgeous! The West lake is very nice with walking and bicycles path all around it as well as boat rides. We got dinner and spent the night playing a cards tournament...Amy won! She's quite good at cards, Dave on the other hand...That's a whole different story for another blog! haha! We were leaving for Beijing the next evening so we went to the Lingying Temple. Amy took us, much to our dismay, along many steps of stairs to see a ROCK!!! Ya...Dave and I weren't really happy about that but we figured we might as well make the best of it and considered it our daily exercise. We finally found the right path and walked along the riverbanks where around 400 buddhist carvings can be seen. We didn't see all of them but they are very interesting! Amy got a crush on the laughing Buddha and got a picture so she was a happy camper! The main temple is incredible. It was by far the best temple we've seen, and we've seen a lot. The details and the work put in this temple is amazing! There are big Buddhas and all kinds of sculptures...one word: Gorgeous! We had a good time in Hangzhou but its time to say goodbye and say hello to Beijing! See you there! Love, Sophie

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Photos

A wise man
Sophie tried to chat him up but he said nothing

Buddha on The Wall on the Pagoda
The details inside the pagoda were well worth the walk

Buddha Carving at Lingying
One of the four hundred carved Buddhas around a pond on the temple grounds

The New Best Buddha in the World
The laughing Buddha that won Amy's heart

Our Favorite Temple
A rare shot of the temple, as unlike some others, we were respectful of the no photo rule!

Taking a rest on our walk
Soph and Dave enjoy the scenery and each other

Comments

[Gina]

wow
Andrea and I went to Hangzhou! The train ride was lovely at 6am with a hangover/still drunk. Looks like you guys had as much fun as we did! haha