Visiting Hangzhou

Tuesday Jan 27^th…

Another early morning on the bus; we left Suzhou for a three hour bus ride to Hangzhou. Overall I really enjoyed Suzhou. It was not what I expected since everyone kept calling it Venice and it was really nothing like Venice but it was still really beautiful and we were able to see some awesome things. The city was a lot bigger than I expected but at the same time it wasn’t a huge city. I am really glad I was able to see Suzhou.

Upon arriving in Hangzhou we went on a cave tour. I started off thinking this was going to be a dark, wet, creepy cave but it ended up having neon lights all over the cave. These lights caught us really off guard. They ended up being neat but not cave like by any means. Also the whole time we were walking around in the cave there was a paved path laid out for us. So it wasn’t an adventurous as expected.  Inside the cave there was a Taoist shrine area. They were trying to get us to pay money to pray to their God…It didn’t work though.  To get back to the starting point of the cave we took a little train like vehicle. It was fun but it probably wouldn’t have been as fun as it was if we weren’t with a great group of people.

After the cave we went and ate lunch; another great traditional meal with far too much food. When we were done with lunch we sat in traffic for a while before arriving at West Lake. We walked around for a short time and then got on a boat to go over to the West Lake Scenic Area. It was a gorgeous day to be on the water.  I don’t really remember too much historical information that our guide told us about the scenic area however it was enjoyable just to walk around and see the people and the views of the city of Hangzhou. On the way back from the scenic area the sun was setting. It was a gorgeous clear sky with beautiful hills. The colors of the sky were a deep orange…incredible, a perfect moment to be on the water.

Since Hangzhou is known for it’s tea; next we traveled into the mountains and stopped at place that would have been called a vineyard if we were drinking wine but it was the tea version. We sampled a green tea and they also showed us there blooming flower teas. They put a flower bulb into the glass and as the water is poured on it the flower blooms in the cup…really cool to watch. It was a short visit but an awesome sight to be in the middle of all of these tea fields in the mountains.

We all got back on the bus and headed to dinner. This dinner was great-as always.  After dinner I was told that some of the guys at the other table may or may not have left the table with some stinky toufu and other food/bones. As a sidenote, stinky toufu is awful! It is one of the stinkiest things you will ever smell. It is just horrible, I cannot describe it and I do not understand why the Chinese people enjoy eating it because it tastes just as awful as it smells. The guys were plotting to hide this toufu among other things in our hotel room. Thanks to our inside tip we were able to find out about it before we got to the hotel and we were able to get a hold of their passports and have something to bargain/threaten them with J We were successful and no food was hidden in our room. These hotel rooms were very nice, so I am glad the guys didn’t ruin it with an awful smell.

We ended up going out in downtown Hangzhou. As we were walking around fireworks started going off everywhere. I love all of these fireworks!!! It was a really cool sight with the temple lit up in the background and fireworks going off right next to it.  Eventually 6 of us ended up at a local bar (our favorites J) This was probably one of the smokiest bars I have been in. We ended up staying and having a great time playing dice and just meeting new people. As a late night snack, I gave in to the American ways and got my first McD's. It was so good!!! and totally worth it!