Hangzhou

This Thursday after class, everyone got on a bus to go to Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province. There's a saying in Chinese that there's heaven above and Hangzhou and Suzhou on earth. The city is known for it's gardens, parks, and the huge West Lake.

The bus ride took about 4 hours and was followed up by a meal at one of the 4 most reputable restaurants in town. We tried several Zhejiang dishes including a dish which was the equivalent to the western beggar's chicken, wrapped in leaves. Also had some fish in this odd sweet sauce that's supposedly a Zhejiang dish.

A guy in our program had friends in Hangzhou, so we checked out a couple bars with them that night. Seemed to have a pretty diverse selection, probably beats Nanjing slightly in terms of nightlife. I went from a Mexican restaurant/bar to a Reggae bar on to an intense dance club (there were lots of lasers) and back to the Reggae bar, where I proceeded to eat a pretty good hamburger.

Friday, we visited this huge park with this famous temple in it. I wish I could say something about the temple, but I didn't actually go inside, I just wandered around the park. I've seen so many temples, I'm almost templed-out, and there was plenty of other cool stuff to see. Particularly, all over were these Buddhas carved in the stones around the temple, sometimes high up in the rocks.



A cave entrance in the park with Buddhist carvings. We could pretty much go wherever so I walked through the interior and out another entrance.








I went through a cave, up these stairs in these rock formations an climbed the steps up this small mountain/hill thing. Hung out on top and wandered down the other side to see the temple complex rising through the trees on one side. It was very serene, I can only imagine how tranquil it would be before the city and tourism had grown.

Followed that up with a meal at Grandma's Kitchen, another of the 4 most reputable restaurants. I ate what probably was jellyfish as well as this fatty pork back, among many other things.


West Lake










Then we took a boat out to an island in West Lake. After that had some R&R, went to the Mexican restaurant for burritos, and out for the night.

Saturday morning, we went out to the tea growing mountains where we heard a lecture/sales pitch for this one type of tea. We all got to drink the tea, which was delicious, but not delicious enough for me to part with 150 to 300 kuai. Also learned about pouring tea, how it's grown/dried, different ways to steep it. The lecture was given by this spunky employee who's English was really good and at one point made a Brokeback Mountain joke. We then climbed an adjacent mountain with tiers of tea plants being grown.



Trenton tries and fails to take a picture with a tea picker. He later gave her 20 kuai, she promptly stopped working and walked off the mountain.








The program took us all to Papa John's (what?) for lunch and then we took the bus back home. That will round out my traveling until my 10 day break that starts on April 17, when I plan to go to Xinjiang.