Hangzhou . . . Just the most beautiful place EVER!

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):

Hanoi!

We only had a couple of days in Vietnam, but we had heard such good things about Halong Bay, that we wanted to make a trip to it.  Our decisions turned out to be a good one, as we felt we got a decent picture of Hanoi in the other two nights and full day we spent in Hanoi.  Halong Bay was very pretty BUT there was a hard-to-describe guilty feeling occasionally - Halong Bay is SO overcommercialized as of today that at times, we felt like we were looking at something that was 'once' beautiful, but now has boats everywhere and trash in the water, etc.  Even so, it was still very pretty!

Here you can see just how many boats were out on the water in these pics:

 On this island, there was a really pretty cave.  It was funny because the tour guide kept telling everyone that one rock looked like this, and . . . we didn't see any of it.  The cave was very cool though!

 More pretty scenery!

 A fishing village.  We spent some time kayaking around this area.  It was really unbelievable but actually reminded James about some of the cajun boat living that occurs/used to occur in the swamps of Louisiana.  One of the buildings was a school with about 10 desks and "school".  As we paddled past, there were many young children sitting at the desks with a teacher teaching at the front of the room.  CRAZY!

 Here is the entrance to Ho Chi Minh's house on stilts  It's debated how much time he actually spent there.  Oh, and everyone in Vietnam calls Ho Chi Minh, "Uncle Ho"

 Here is his mausoleum.  We were a bit disappointed that he's in Russia getting "fixed up," as he does for 2 months every year.  I mean, the guys been dead since 1969 . . . but I guess the Russians have the most experience (Lenin has been on display since 1924).

 This is one of the few places you can get a picture of the Vietnamese army without getting your camera taken away!

 The CRAZY streets of Hanoi.  7 million people, 4 million scooters!

 We visited the "Temple of Literature" which was a really pretty park with a temple at the back.  There were a lot of young women dressed up the day we visited, evidently for a party or graduation, etc.

 This picture has probably only 50% of the girls who were taking pictures everywhere!  LOTS of posing going on at the Temple.

 Back to the streets of Hanoi.  People still used the "scales of justice" set up for carrying EVERYTHING!  We saw fruits and vegetables, eggs, LIVE CHICKENS, souvenirs - anything that needed carrying.

 Possibly one of the most meaningful trips you can make in Vietnam is to see some of the places where American POWs were held.  Here is the Hanoi Hilton, where a good bit of American soldiers, including John McCain, were imprisoned during the Vietnam War.  It was a French Colonial prison - originally used to imprison Vietnamese, but then used by the Vietnamese during the war.  It was a somber sight, but definitely worth seeing.  The Vietnamese propaganda and stories about the American POWs were laughable -- everyone in the prison was mistreated but the Americans, who had church and turkey dinners.  But, if you were willing to do some pre- or post-reading, you really gained a respect for the men who spent up to 5 years in the conditions at the prison.

 One of the cells.  The legs shackles totally immobilized the people inside.

 This is supposedly John McCain's flight suit.  McCain visited the prison at one point and said he thought the boots were not right.  He also laughed at the Christmas dinner picture -- he wasn't in it, because he kept flipping off the camera and shouting obscenities.  He was severely beaten for it - but gotta love that guy.

 Pretty church!

 Tiffany with her groceries . . .

 Rooster on the street in a city with 7 million!

 O.M.G.  This is snake liquor.  That's a real cobra inside.  The bigger one has a Cobra AND a scorpion inside.  And we southerners think moonshine will mess a person up . . .

LOTS of crazy stuff in Vietnam, but all in all, it was a BLAST!