A walking tour round the West Lake---- we wanted to take in as many of the famous sights round the West Lake as possible in one day, and the best way was to walk. Today it's partly cloudy but at least it's a dry day!
Started off from the Shangri-La Hotel, the first stop, "Lotus In the Breeze at Crooked Courtyard", is just a few minutes walk across the road. Visited some flower exhibition and then walked along the Su Causeway which is lined with willow trees all the way. Normally it would only take about half an hour to walk from one end of the Su Causeway to the other, but with the way we stopped and took photos, it took us two hours to finish this part of the walk.
We then paid a visit to Jinci Temple. Inside there's the "Nanping Night Bell" which probably didn't really mean a lot to most Westerners, but there was a classic Chinese song about this scenic spot and so I've got to see it. Quite impressive.
After visiting a few more scenic spots and walking three quarters of the lake perimeter (that's quite a few miles), we were ready to give it a break and decided to take the rest of the day easy. Stopped over at a teahouse and sampled some pearl tea (specialty from Taiwan), and then had some retail therapy---- bought some top grade Lungjiang (Dragon Well) green tea which cost RMB320 for 250g (it'd better be good!) and some more tea (more Lungjiang, as well as Jasmine) for friends. Being really tight, we then took a bus back to the hotel---- a first for us but it seemed easy enough!
After dropping the shopping bags back at the hotel, we decided to go and find a teahouse at the Bai Causeway to relax a bit (sightseeing and shopping really was hard work!) and also take some evening photos of the Hangzhou skyline. En route, we stopped at the Xiling Seal Engraving Society---- as we were there just before it closed (it was only about 5pm) we didn't have to pay anything to get in. Then on our way to a nice teahouse with a pavilion overlooking the lake, a few "pests" came and asked if we wanted our palms read. Arrgh! As usual I refused and then took a different strategy of simply ignoring them (they were wearing me down). It got to the point where the idea of using my tripod to attack them actually crossed my mind---- now that would be real "tourist rage"!
Took a taxi to Tianxianglou in Zhejiang Hotel in town for dinner. Apparently one of the Olympics Gold medalists was dining there also that evening (according to the guest welcoming board) and so that's my claim to fame in China! We had to wait a while for a table (hmmmm, a good sign!) but it was worth it. We ordered some of the typical dishes from Hangzhou, including Longjiang Shrimps (Shrimps cooked in Longjiang tea), Mrs Sung's Fish Soup (very gingery but refreshing), Duck with chestnuts (yum!) and bun with springonions.
Another cheap taxi ride back to the hotel--- washed some clothes and then went straight to bed..... Too tired.
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