Hangzhou

OK here's a quick update to what we did last weekend. Friday night after class we took one of the fast trains (200 km/h) to the other Chinese "heaven" town - Hangzhou. I was expecting a smaller town on the order of Suzhou, but Hangzhou actutally has a population of 4 or 5 million people. The main attraction of Hangzhou that people from all over China come to visit is West Lake, which is a large lake (probably about 5 miles circumference) in the center of the city. When we arrived Friday night we ate dinner, then checked into the West Lake Youth Hostel - a great experience and highly recommended. We didn't want to waste any time while we were there, so we started to walk towards some bright lights that we had passed on the way to the hostel. We stumbled upon the lake, and strolled around passing some clubs and restaurants, and eventually making our way to the downtown area.

Saturday we woke up early and checked out a series of ancient Buddhist temples outside the town, built in the 1100s. Many people were burning incense sticks and praying to some of the huge (100 ft tall) statues of Buddah. I felt like a champ when I hiked to the top of "mountain" they were built on (nothing after Huanghshan). After we were templed out - we headed back to the lake and rented bikes. I finally got my chance to be on the other side of the wheel - it was sort of a game seeing how close you could come to traffic without getting hit or before freezing someone in their tracks. We encircled the lake in a few hours then toured a newly renovated pagoda. We were relieved when we found out it had an elevator to the top. This one was worth much more than those ancient ones that they make you walk up.
Train left the station at 9:09 and we zipped back to Shanghai in an hour.
On Sunday, Kiki was nice enough to invite Mark, Fang, Liang, and I to her home for the Dragon's Day Festival Dinner. We helped her mom make spring rolls and tzongza (rice/meat wrapped in leaves). After lunch we walked through a nearby park where cut into a baseball game with some locals, and rented boats and sailed around a lake. Afterwords, in true Chinese form, we joined the 20 or so kites hanging above the city - ours was best because it had a tail. We went back to Kiki's place and her mom had dinner waiting for us, really great service around here :-). Finally her dad got back from his business trip and presented us with some rare fruits from Hainan province (Hawaii of China). Xie Xie!