Hello everyone, today after a long few days (seemingly) of travel, involving pretty much every mode of transport possible, we arrived in Hangzhou. Buffet breakfast was awaiting us, and needless to say i lived up to the Davey motto of 'all you can eat!' (anyone who knows me understands what that means!).
Hangzhou is much more like the China i have been dying to see, as today i got my first taste of temples, picturesque parks and lakes all in one day. Throw in a couple of Buddhas, some monks and some pagodas and wallah, China in a nutshell!
I got myself up at 5:30 and smartened up, donned my thermals ( god i look sexy in those skintight gray bad boys, photos up soon) and headed across the road to witness hundreds of older generation Chinese practicing Tai chi all over the place. obviously fascinated by this, i contemplated asking to join in, but didn't have the balls to try and ask (all my attempts to ask for stuff seem to end in misery here, you should have seen me trying to get access to this terminal!). Dragon is going to take us back there tomorrow so will hopefully get a go then.
Later we went as a group to West Lake, a 5km wide Lake surrounded by beautiful park scenery, weeping willow trees, and half the population of Korea on holiday. Spoiled it a little but you can't have everything can you.
After a boat trip on the lake we then moved a visit to the Dragon Well Tea Village, where we were shown around the tea plantation, shown the art of, picking, drying, pouring, smelling and finally drinking green tea. Then we were all conned through embarrassment into buying copious amounts of this 'fine green tea' (supposedly one of the top 10 teas in china though). Tastes good though so can't complain too much. A little down the road we were treated to lunch (well the others were, i was too stuffed from breakfast) in the home of a tea plantation owner.
In the afternoon we visited the Six Harmony pagoda and then the Ling yin Si Temple and monastery, where currently 80 monks (and even more Koreans!) live. My first insight into temple culture and i can honestly say i loved every minute of it, and apparently i picked a good temple to start with, according to the others.
So today has been a good day, and we all feel that were finally getting to see some of china, as opposed to just constantly traveling around all the time. After our cultural day i think were gonna finish up with a bit of good ol' Western bowling in our Hotel.
Sorry my writing is so boring, I'm trying to keep the entries short, but i promise I'll get better at this soon! Keep reading them please. Pics will be up when i can find a USB port on this computer!
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Hangzhou Hotels
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