We were told by numerous people that Hangzhou was THE PLACE to go in China to see a beautiful, old, culture-filled city. When I started researching this former capital of China, I find that Marco Polo said that Hangzhou was "the City of Heaven, the most beautiful and magnificent in the world." Needless to say, I went into this trip with high expectations. Let's just say, I was not disappointed. Hangzhou is truly breathtaking.
This is the street by our hotel. This whole area actually looks like this and allows no cars. And yes, that is a creek beautifully running by the road.
And... there were plenty of shops!
This was a carving that we walked upon in this area. The detail on it is amazing!
And you can't have an old part of any city without a giant, big golden Buddha.
We also happened upon an art museum:
The hanging bronze staircase in the art museum was beautiful:
A throne:
An action shot:
And the famous West Lake!! It truly is as beautiful as people say. We pretty much all thought it was prettier (and cleaner) than Halong Bay in Vietnam.
A boat docked for repairs by the lake:
A pagoda in the distance:
After a long day of walking around and trying to grasp the beauty of this city (and spending two hours to find a taxi - sensitive subject, but suffice it to say that we unwillingly walked about 6 miles), we decided to treat ourselves to some hot tea. But we didn't just have any old hot tea... we had Kung Fu tea! This basically is regular tea pored in an irregular way and is truly an art form. The tea spout is 6 feet long and the "Tea Doctor" mimics kung fu moves when pouring it. This was fascinating and SO fun!
The next day, we went to go see the dragon well, which is basically an old well surrounded by beautiful scenery:
Then we went to see some tea fields!
Then, we went out to the Lingyin Temple, which was surrounded by a mountainous area. Apparently, at some point, some monk saw this area and thought "I should carve a BUNCH of Buddhas in this mountain:
Walking around this area was beautiful, but sometimes James would forget what he was supposed to be taking pictures of:
A picture for Christine - I don't know what to tell you...
The temple!
The view:
More pictures of the West Lake:
A bamboo forest... how cool is that?!
This is a truly ancient pagoda... and not once was ancient, then was completely "restored" in 2002 like many things in China. (Our one criticism of China so far is that a lot of places tend to be over-restored. Without adequate research, you can easily head to an "ancient pagoda" with steel beams, escalators, and a glass-enclosed excavated foundation of the original building. This one is legit though - from around 900A.D.)
West Lake is the prettiest lake I have ever seen:
But a girl's gotta eat:
And a final picture of the area around our hotel (my favorite area of Hangzhou):
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