The Return of the Brother: HangZhou
After a little mishap with the train ticket buying schedule, we ended up having to book a flight from ZhangJiaJie to HangZhou. It was probably a good thing as I don't think either of us really wanted an 18 hour overnight train journey, especially after our last three shattering days of mountain wandering (cant really call it climbing) and scorching weather.
We landed into HangZhou a little after midnight and jumped into a taxi. The confirmation email from hostelworld.com had given us an address of the hostel but nothing else so we were a little unsure what we were looking for. Our taxi driver was far from pleasant but did eventually manage to get us to our hostel. We checked in and immediately jumped into bed for our much needed sleep-in!
I had been given plenty of ideas for things to do and see in HangZhou. Harry(fellow Shane worker) had supplied the things to see/places to go part of the trip and Burt(a guy I met in the hostel in Chengdu) had given me a huge list of places to drink/eat. Between the two of them we had a long list and were expecting a busy few days of wandering about and drinking. The hostel however, let us down! not only did they not have a map of the city but looked genuinely confused as to why we would want one. The hostel itself was OK but we got the impression that we guests we an annoyance to the staff. How dare we interrupt their sleeping for things like maps. After several minuted of our questions not being answered, we gave up and just went looking for a bus route. We were heading for the tea museum so we were fairly confident of finding it.
A quick bus ride, a wrong stop and a minor detour through some kind of garden and we eventually found a main road with signs. It turns out we were about 150 meters away all the time.
The museum is completely free and has several different areas all with their own speciality subject. There was a room for tea culture, one for the history of tea, another with the trade routes and one with the all of the modern day tea related merchandise (apparently there is more to tea than just tea.) The displays were in English and Chinese and was actually fairly interesting and well laid out. Round the back of the building is whats left of the tea fields. They are laid out in an almost rice terrace style so we climbed to the top and chilled out for a bit.
We left the tea museum and jumped into a taxi. With no map as a reference point I just blundered my way through asking the taxi driver to take us to a nice part of the lake. He seemed confused and unwilling to just drop us somewhere so we settled on 'just take us to the part that's good for walking and taking pictures'. He dropped us on the North bank and just told us to walk across as its the best part for taking pictures. He wasn't wrong, It certainly had its moments. The pathway across was tree lined and frequently interrupted with little bridges where people riding little one speed rented bikes would come to a grinding halt and sometimes topple over. We sat and watched the sun go down before wandering off in search of Slims, a New York style burger place that came highly recommended by Burt from the Chengdu hostel.
By fluke, coincidence or Divine intervention our path across the lake joined the road we were looking for. We needed 202b NanShan road and we happened across 3 NanShan road. A 45 minute walk later we found the restaurant! We ordered burgers and onion rings and waited (patiently) for them to arrive, when they finally did we were glad we had chosen this place. Burt had described these burgers to me as the best he had EVER eaten. I don't think I would go that far but they are certainly in the top 5, very good considering China.
Very full, we stumbled back to the hostel and decided to just head back to ShangHai. HangZhou was nice but considering where we had just been, the "most beautiful city in China" paled a little in comparison.
We slept in again and then just checked out and
went to the train station to get the next train back. We lucked out and got tickets for one of the fastest trains and arrived back in ShangHai after only 45 minutes.
We landed into HangZhou a little after midnight and jumped into a taxi. The confirmation email from hostelworld.com had given us an address of the hostel but nothing else so we were a little unsure what we were looking for. Our taxi driver was far from pleasant but did eventually manage to get us to our hostel. We checked in and immediately jumped into bed for our much needed sleep-in!
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| playing in the tea fields |
A quick bus ride, a wrong stop and a minor detour through some kind of garden and we eventually found a main road with signs. It turns out we were about 150 meters away all the time.
The museum is completely free and has several different areas all with their own speciality subject. There was a room for tea culture, one for the history of tea, another with the trade routes and one with the all of the modern day tea related merchandise (apparently there is more to tea than just tea.) The displays were in English and Chinese and was actually fairly interesting and well laid out. Round the back of the building is whats left of the tea fields. They are laid out in an almost rice terrace style so we climbed to the top and chilled out for a bit.
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| sunset over the west lake |
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| BURGERS!!! |
Very full, we stumbled back to the hostel and decided to just head back to ShangHai. HangZhou was nice but considering where we had just been, the "most beautiful city in China" paled a little in comparison.
We slept in again and then just checked out and
went to the train station to get the next train back. We lucked out and got tickets for one of the fastest trains and arrived back in ShangHai after only 45 minutes.
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