Sunday 30 June 2019

China Trip - Hangzhou

After Suzhou, the next stop on our itinerary was Hangzhou, described thus on the Web:

Hangzhou, the capital of China’s Zhejiang province, is the southern terminus of the ancient Grand Canal waterway, which originates in Beijing. Its West Lake, celebrated by poets and artists since the 9th century, encompasses islands (reachable by boat), temples, pavilions, gardens and arched bridges. On its south bank is 5-story Leifeng Pagoda, a modern reconstruction of a structure built in 975 A.D.

Marco Polo also described it as " The most beautiful and magnificent city in the world". 

We arrived in the evening and were allowed loose on the streets for a few hours, visiting another night market where we again purchased local street food. This evening was memorable for a huge storm that broke, hurling monsoon like rain down from the sky for about 90 minutes. This was the only rain we experienced in the whole trip.

View from Hangzhou hotel room
Local delicacies including scorpion - we did not purchase from this particular vendor!
Live goldfish and terrapins in a child's paddling pool - they could be caught using a small plastic fishing rod - not sure what happened to them after that - taken home as pets or tossed on the barbeque??

Next morning, we headed out into the countryside and visited the Dragon Wall Green Tea Plantation. Again, this was an opportunity to flog us all the product, but the experience was much more pleasant than some of the previous commercial visits, no doubt helped by the softer sales pitch from the young lady doing the presentation, who seemed genuinely interested in the green tea and explaining all the supposed health benefits, rather than just being there to sell it! She did say she had spent four years studying green tea

Entrance of the Dragon Wall Tea Plantation

Inner courtyard and large teapot

Above and below - Green tea demonstration


Above and below - the Dragon Wall Tea Plantation surrounded by fields of tea plants

  



Back on Hangzhou, a couple of street views. We noticed lots of trees and shrubbery everywhere we went in Chinese cities


Next we visited the Western Lake, spending about an hour peacefully meandering around its many islands on one of the boats below
Above and below - scenes from the Western Lake
Back on dry land, it was time for lunch. In the central courtyard surrounded by various food outlets, we saw this statue of a famous Chinese general, Yue Fei. A quick Google search provides the pen sketch below the picture

Yue Fei (March 24, 1103 – January 28, 1142), was a Han Chinese military general who lived during the Southern Song dynasty. He is best known for leading Southern Song forces in the wars in the 12th century between Southern Song and the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty in northern China before being put to death by the Southern Song government in 1142 under a concocted charge. Widely seen as a patriot and national folk hero in China, since his death Yue Fei has evolved into a standard epitome of loyalty in Chinese culture.


Yue Fei had six special methods for deploying an army effectively:
Careful selection
Careful training
Justice in rewards and punishments
Clear orders
Strict discipline
Close fellowship with his men

Above and below - our lunch - three whole deep fried squid each, pasted with thick soy sauce then the secret herbs and spices shaken over it, so they stuck to the soy - very tasty and a snip at 5 yuan - about NZ$1!

On the way back to the bus, we passed this … temple maybe? It looked cool anyway 

And that was us finished in Hangzhou. We spent a couple of hours on the bus travelling to Shanghai, where we would have two more days before the tour came to an end

Views from the bus entering Shanghai


Next China trip post will be the last as I share some images of the two days in Shanghai.





















5 comments:

  1. Again lots of memories. I really liked the time we had at West Lake. Even though there were thousands of people there it was a peaceful place with all those layers of hills. We went to the tea plantation...now I can’t stand tea but I felt obliged to try...grass clipping but her indoors loved it.

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  2. Thanks Mark - the West Lake was not particularly busy when we were there - there were people around but no more so than there would be on an average day at the Auckland Domain.

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  3. We just went straight from Beijing to Shanghai, so this is another area I wish we had had the opportunity to visit. I know what you mean about people constantly trying to sell stuff, although I didn't find them overly pushy apart from a Chinese medicine place we visited where the doctor (or at least a bloke in a white coat) intimated that if I didn't purchase his concoctions I would be dead in ten years. He may yet be proven correct, but if he is at least I'll die a couple of hundred US dollars better off.

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    1. Wonderful...I think met the same man... he looked at my tongue and said the same thing...I still have a year and a bit to go.

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    2. Yes 100% - I didn't mention it but we went to Beijing Chinese Medicine centre and same thing - they correctly identified a few health issues my wife has then recommended two or three remedies which would have combined to around NZ$1800 - needless to say, we did not buy any of it!

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