Zhijiang Hangzhou

... is a challenge in itself as there arn't many breaks in traffic and the next pedestrian crossing is sometimes a fair walk away. Dinners continue to be a mixture of many different foods, but seem to always feature rice, chicken and beef. I am certainly not going hungry and havn't been to McDonalds once.

Today we walked on the other side of the west lake near where I am staying and took some beautiful pictures of the lake. Unfortunately the area is in constant fog, so it ...

... very happy to see me. She hasnt seen many foreigners in her lifetime.

The next night we went to a fancy restaurant which is called 'Grandma's'. There is usually a 40 minute wait to get in, but the cousin got there early and her husband picked me up. They order many different foods once again, such as fish, chicken, rice, pork and so on. We also got some potatos shaped as a face, in ...

... I did eat that.

The temperature continues to be be very cold and I have bought a skivvy like jumper to put underneath my jacket which increases the body temperature very well. Gloves are also essential as I found out yesterday when I didnt have them. I think maybe the temperature is keeping most tourists away, although Hangzhou is significantly warmer than the capital Beijing and they seem to have no problem getting tourists.

... I guess it was about 2 or 3 degrees at that time and although I was wearing several layers it was very hard to walk outside for much longer, so we went back to the apartment.

The next morning I had a good sleep in and then received word than Monica's friend would take me to see the West Lake. Unfortunately it turned out that she was busy and so Monica said we would go to the West Lake tonight with her friends. I had actually planned to go there by bus, which would have been ...

... see here, but my first inkling that it would be more than a trout sewn onto a fishing shirt was when Joe told us that no photography was allowed because they were concerned with the Japanese stealing the secrets of their craft. The unfortunate part is that we don’t have anything to show you how amazing it was.

The art is all done with silk thread. A single silk thread can be further divided into 48 ...

... bird? No one could explain this to us and from what we could see, no one else seemed to find these questions even the slightest bit relevant. Highly irrational.

My personal low of the trip was a 5 hour (FIVE HOUR) karaoke session that nearly drained me of the will to live. I can honestly say that I enjoyed myself for the first hour or two - the Stellas and Coronas were cheap, everyone was having a great time together and ...

... train station, stood in a long, pushy line inside the crowded and loud train station, and luckily got tickets booked for 2:00 the next day. What we didn't realize at the time, was that the fast train was booked, and we had bought tickets on the slow (re: NOT Western-friendly train) that arrived back at a different train station in Shanghai, which would later provide some confusion and entertainment.
With tickets in hand, we decided to just get into a taxi and pick a random street ...

... envie lol. 3eme jour : Ballade a pied a la decouverte de Hangzhou, surement la ville la plus belle et agreable visitee depuis le debut du voyage. Tour du magnifique et paisible lac de l'ouest (4h de marche tout de meme), puis escalade d'une petite colline bien sympathique qui donne un panorama sur la ville. Apres ces trois premiers jours vraiment reussis a Hangzhou, depart pour Shanghai (2 jours pour visiter cette megalopole, il ne va pas falloir chomer).

... more time. Lo, and behold, it was there. Turns out, this style was the latest release of the commemorative watches and everyone has been trying to get their hands on it! AND I JUST DID. So, in my euphoria, I buy it immediately and rejoice. I also read the little pamphlet insert that talks about the Fuwa and it's a clever, clever design for something that's so cute it didn't even need to be clever to sell. So, the Fuwas ...

... saw one accident. Lots of people have asked me how I got on with the food, and I have to say it was superb (well, most of it). To be honest, I think that the food was one of the highlights of my trip. Restaurants ranged from massive four storey palaces with hundreds of tables, to a noodle shack on the street. Ordering food was a bit different too. There were no menus, just tables of vegetables and tanks full of fish, shellfish, snakes and even a shark on occasion. I ...