New Year's in Style!
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2008
1
13
46
Trip End
Jul 22, 2009
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
We woke up early and took the bus to Hefei. This wasn't too bad nor dud we have any problems. We did run into a few difficulties when we were trying to get train tickets. All of the lines for tickets were literally out of the station doors. So, we decided to hedge our bets and take a fast train (which has a different ticketing area) to Shanghai and then hopefully get a train from there to Hangzhou. We were able to get a ticket, but for the three hours to Shanghai we would stand. Not too bad, I guess, so we bought the tickets and an hour later we left. Once on the train we took an empty seat without much of an issue. Most of the time I sat in the back of the train on out one small bag and Steve got the seat. When an owner of the seat finally got on the train I still was able to sit on the luggage and Steve had to stand, therefore vengeance was mine :)
Once in Shanghai we were able to get tickets easily to Hangzhou and then finally arrived around 10:00. We got a taxi and they dropped us off close to the hostel. We weren't quite positive where we were so Steve and I walked up the hill next to us and asked the owners of a tiny restaurant where we were supposed to go. They pointed up the hill, but we couldn't understand enough to know how far up the hill. We continued to walk up another hill and ran into a group of ten 20 year olds or so, who took it upon themselves to all escort both of us up the hill and show us EXACTLY where it was. It was great! We talked to them in bad Chinese and they talked to us in bad English. Therefore we felt it was only right to get a picture of our new posse. We checked into our dorm room and fell fast asleep.
The next day we decided to visit the Six Harmonies Pagoda which was fairly close. It wasn't quite what we expected. We started out by wondering around the grounds only to find out that it consisted of stone replicas pagodas in other parts of China. It took us a little while to realize this, but once we did it was pretty interesting to see. The pagoda itself cost another 10 yuan, so we decided against seeing the top. We were also hungry and ready to see around the lake.
Hangzhou was a town that we were able to see last year. We came here for one day last year (and some of the pictures are from then) and we fell in love with its natural beauty and we knew that we wanted to come back. The West Lake area was by far the most beautiful area that we saw. We caught a bus and went up the the lake area to not only get food, but also to find out where we wanted to ring in the New Year! We found a coffee house where I had a great Irish Coffee and Steve and I had some spaghetti. We wondered some more and found and Indian restaurant where they were having a buffet and drink all included in the price. They also had a belly dancer that danced a song about once every thirty minutes. The food was fantastic! We also ended up meeting three Westerners that teach close to Hangzhou while we were at the restaurant - Julie, Mike, and Tim. They invited us to join them and then we ended up going over to an Irish Pub with them to ring in the New Year. It was a great night and we very much enjoyed our new friends.
After getting up the next day we knew that we wanted to catch an evening bus, so we needed to figure out what to do for a few hours. On our way up to the lake the day before we had seen a pagoda that looked interesting, so we figured why not. Leifeng Pagoda was not what we had hoped. It was completely rebuilt at one point recently. They an escalator to get you to the foot of the pagoda and a new state of the art elevator going to the top. The view was nice, but besides that the admittance fee was completely not worth it. Another thing that made this pagoda at least bearable was the story of Lady White Snake that was etched out of wood on the walls of the second floor of the pagoda. Her story is of an immortal who longs to be human. She was able to obtain an umbrella that will keep her connected to the Earth. She also met a scholar who instantly fell in love with her. If she could marry a human she would be able to remain human permanently. The immortals started a war that included to lobster, crab, and crawfish people from under the sea. In the end she was imprisoned in the Leifeng Pagoda and all was well with the world. Steve took a liking to the seapeople.
After walking back down to the bottom (because we refused to take the elevator at all) we made our way over to a park and went for a walk and took lots of pictures. Neither Steve nor I thought we would ever get so much use out of long underwear before we moved to China.
We ate a nice little lunch before heading on a local bus to the long distance bus station. Both of us hated to leave this little town because it is by far the most beautiful we have seen in China, but we did want to see the other side of the saying in China - There are the Heavens about and on Earth there is Hangzhou and Suzhou. So we started out journey to the bus station. We were kind of under the impression that the bus would only take thirty minutes, but it was more like an hour. We did end up lucking out, though, and we did catch the last bus to Suzhou.
