Day 28: Hangzhou

Trip Start Apr 16, 2009
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Trip End May 31, 2009


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Flag of China  , Zhejiang,
Thursday, May 14, 2009

My second day in Hangzhou. After my arrival in Hangzhou on Monday, with some 35 degrees outside, I was instantly invited to a larger dinner gathering of friends and colleagues from Sarah and Joel, my hosts here. This was an interesting round of people, both spending time and working here in HZ, as well as visitors eg from Australia. Yesterday, Robert (a former working colleague at bwin) and me met in the morning and planned to spend parts of the day together. Luckily, it happened that we both arranged to meet up only last week as we both fixed our travel plans. So we met at a lovely cafe with indeed good coffee and bakery, before heading into downtown for checking out various shopping places. We split up after lunch but met again in the evening to have dinner and go out with Robert's host in HZ, Eric, who is a local Chinese here. Kind enough, Eric taught us to play the most common Chinese card game (don't ask me for the name), which you can watch all around Chinese towns. It's all about gaming, you know. To be recommended is a visit of the Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine, accessible via walking to one of the oldest TCM drug stores around. Very interesting and charming to see!
Today, we met again in the morning before Robert left for the airport to catch his flight to K.L. I spent the day with Florian, a German guy Robert met during his stay here, taking a look at various sights and places, including the Botanical Gardens (however, out of season with not so much to see, indeed), the Zhejiang Provincial Museum (not necessarily a must-see here), Gu Hill and the Baidi Causeway as well as the scenery along the north and east bank of West Lake, the city's sort-of symbol and main attraction. In fact, Hangzhou is said to be a) the best tourist city in China (due to Tourism Board), b) the safest one in a country that is extremely safe (due to Tourism Board), and c) the tea capital of China (due to Longjing tea and tea village in the south/west of the city). Of course, HZ is also said to be the most beautiful place in China. Other Chinese say other things about other places... The weather improved from yesterday, where it was extremely smoggy, dusty, windy and dirty, to today with convenient temperatures around 26 degrees (felt), some clouds but also little sunshine and overall much better views. The rain yesterday evening helped a bit. Overall, I found HZ to be a very lovely place, beautiful town, much cleaner and organised. Probably the most convenient place to stay that I have seen so far in China.
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Comments

vie168
vie168 on May 14, 2009 at 09:57AM

Hangzhou
I can imagine cause Hangzhou is the only city that has money to put advertisement on CNN!!

I love Xi1Hu2 with water lily- very Chinese style & do try the root part cause we often fill the empty part with rice for a desert. Have Fun!

petra454
petra454 on May 14, 2009 at 07:37PM

Hunger
Ich bekomm immer Hunger nachdem ich deine Fotos angeschaut habe...
Viele liebe Grüsse aus Bayern nach China!
Petra

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