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Yellow Mountains & HangzhouOct 13, 2004
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Hangzhou cruising on the picturesque West Lake
Hangzhou's West Lake
On the limestone cliffs above Lingyin Temple (Flying Peak)
| Well I must say I am alittle behind in keeping up with these writings, but we had a short and enjoyable visit here. We stayed in a very nice hotel, which Paul was able to book throughout our trip here in China for pennies on the dollar. On our first morning here we went to West Lake one of 30 West Lakes in China, but Hangzhou (pronounced hung jo) is perhaps the most famous. One side of the lake faces the city of Hangzhou and the other sides are surrounded by mountains, which are often shrouded in mist. The scenery was beautiful as we sailed around the lake. We then walked to the Liuhe pogoda which is located in a park full of different pogoda's from different dynasties. China is full of pogodas and we have alot of them pictured here. There is a alot of development going on in this city, it seems like everywhere you look you see a crane. They do use steel for the scaffolding here thoe, in Beijing they used bamboo! That was a scary thing to walk under. Hangzhou is known for its for its silk and its Dragon Well Tea called Longjingcha. But we liked the tea in Beijing better, Paul happened upon a Tea room in the hutong (the oldest part of beijing), where we enjoyed hours of samples of different teas and learned proper tea etiquette. The next morning we went to Lingyin temple and saw the flying peaks, which are limestone cliffs where many different sculptures are carved into the sides of the mountains. The most famous one of all is the laughing buddha located at the foot of the mountain, people love to touch its belly as they believe it brings good luck. Two short days here and we boarded the train for our next destination, Suzhou which was just north of Hangzhou. We were very impressed with the train ride (which was a three hour trip) as it was a smoother ride than any of the trains we took in Australia. Cheers. |
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