How much rain could there be in this region? Rain and fog seemed to be the theme of this holiday. Went to the Panorama Restaurant on the top (27th) floor of the hotel for breakfast.... A revolving restaurant in the, errr, cloud.
Did not feel like going out at all today because of the awful weather and so didn't check out until 11am. Then we decide to go to at least one place---- it would be a shame to stop here without going anywhere at all.... So we got a taxi and headed for the Yellow Crane Tower.
Wuhan was huge and it took longer than I expected to get there. It was still raining and so we had a quick walk up the hill to the Yellow Crane Tower. The tower was a 5-storey building and was first built in 223BC, though it has been rebuilt many times since. It was an important watchtower in the old days, to keep an eye on the enemies on the opposite side of the river. Though it cost RMB30 per person to get in, there were some interesting exhibits on each floor of the tower. We climbed to the top floor--- the view was pretty but it would have been even nicer if the sun was out.
It really was raining so much that we then decided to head back to the hotel rather than visit another place (though I would have loved to). Ended up in a coffee shop drinking pearl tea (a special drink from Taiwan--- it's milky tea but with chewy jelly bits in it... ) and just watching the world getting wet.
Left for the airport at 3pm to catch the flight to Hangzhou. I was a bit surprised when the car suddenly turned from the main road into a small bumpy country road. Apparently there were two airports in Wuhan, and we were "lucky" enough to go to the old domestic one which looked like something left over from a WWII film! The terminal was very basic but mega-chaotic--- even for checking in, we had to go to one counter to check in the luggage and another counter further down to get the boarding pass... Would this be the last time we saw our suitcases? What sort of plane would we go onto?
After going through the security, we came to this waiting hall with only two boarding gates, and this was how I would imagine an airport in Flintstones would look like---- no mechanical announcement board, let alone electronic one! All the planes outside were propellers and the runway seemed to be very close as the noise for takeoffs and landings was loud.
About 5 minutes before departure we were told to go to Gate 1 (next to, surprisingly, Gate 2) to board the bus. So more chaotic pushing and queue-jumping. The bus took us to the other end of the airport to a Wuhan Airlines Boeing 737. OK, so it's a jet, but would it take off at this stone-age airport and how long was the runway?
The safety demo was basic and only showed us how to use the oxygen mask, but the air hostesses were courteous and bowed at the beginning and end of each demo session, and there were two sessions, one in Chinese and one in English.
We got served tea and packets of custard cream biscuits during the 1 hour
10 minutes flight to Hangzhou.
"THUMP"--- the landing at Hangzhou airport was hard! Ouch! Good
job Boeing built the landing gear strong enough. I thought this airport would
at least be a bit more modern, but no, it was similar to Chongqing... and
we were allowed to walk on the tarmac to the terminal building.
Our CITS rep Mr Luo was a bit late and so we ended up standing at the terminal exit worrying for a few minutes.... (after all, if our tour operator has messed up so many other things, this could well be another thing they've forgotten). The journey to the Shangri-La Hotel by the West Lake took about half an hour but at least Mr Luo didn't try to sell us a tour--- either he knew we were experienced travellers or CITS Chongqing had already warned him about us.
The hotel was huge and was divided into the East and West Wing (two separate buildings), and we were in the West Wing. Nice room compared to the Holiday Inn but I still preferred Palace Hotel Beijing.
We went to Louwailou Restaurant for dinner, reputedly the most famous restaurant in Hangzhou. As usual ordered and pigged out on far too many dishes. The best was Jinhua ham with lotus seeds--- jinhua ham usually tastes quite salty (more so than gammon), but the way it's cooked here, it actually tasted rather sweet and very tender. The shrimp guoba, which was crispy rice with a shrimp in tomato-y sauce, was excellent also. One of their signature dishes, Dongpo rou, was essentially belly of pork stewed in soy sauce, wine and sugar. The fragrance of the dish was amazing, and it tasted delicious also (though it was not as tender as I would expect). Cost about RMB140 per person but two-thirds of the cost was that plate of jinhua ham!
After such a heavy but satisfying dinner, we took a long walk along Baidi (Bai Causeway) and then Beishan Lu back to the hotel.The night view of the West Lake with the Hangzhou city centre and other main attractions lit up was so beautiful....
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