Hangzhou
Trip Start
Apr 03, 2008
1
11
26
Trip End
Jul 02, 2008
Hangzhou,
Zhejiang,
China
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
As you may have read in my previous post, I wrote a lovely long piece about our stay in Suzhou, and then managed to delete it all. I can't re-write the whole thing, so I'll just give you an idea about our stay there and what we've been up to since.
We arrived in Suzhou from Shanghai on Wednesday 23rd April and stayed in the Mingtown Youth Hostel there for 4 nights. We really enjoyed our time at the hostel - the location is really beautiful, beside a canal on a tiny street in an old part of the city. Suzhou is a canal town, and is full of little canals, pretty bridges and small lanes that you can wander down to see everyday life up close. The rooms in the hostel were lovely, with really great facilities and a relaxed atmosphere. There was free internet and laundry - a real bonus! The only down side I suppose was that in the Mingtown hostels both in Suzhou and here in Hangzhou, we have been in mixed dorms of men and women, and Ali and I have been the only girls! It has not been a problem at all, but I think we would prefer to be in a female dorm really.
The location of the hostel was lovely, and on our first night we even came across a couple of people playing improvised music on the wall next to the canal right outside the hostel door. It was a great atmosphere! We also spent some time playing cards with other hostellers in the nice courtyard garden, and the hostel had 2 lovely dogs too, if a bit boistrous at times!
During our time in Suzhou we did a lot of walking around the various beautiful areas of the city, and around some very interesting areas. We found a great food market south of our hostel as we were heading towards the port on the south side of the city, and really enjoyed walking around the pretty streets at the far west of the city as well. The pedestrian street that runs past the Suzhou museum and the Humble Administrators Garden is busy, and that was an area where we were often bothered by people trying to sell us things! We made the mistake of visiting the Humble Administrator's Garden on a Saturday, and couldn't enjoy it as it was so busy. I believe it is always quite busy, and that really ruined it for us. It was really interesting to see a traditional Chinese garden on that scale though.
We spent some time walking around the area inside the Temple of Mystery gates.This is full of stalls selling some nice things (and some rubbish as always!). Ali and I both picked up some nice souvenirs. Another great thing to so is to go to the twin pagodas. These are set in a lovely quiet garden full of ancient ruins. We really enjoyed spending some time there, especially after the busier places in the city.
We went to the North Temple Pagoda and climbed up all 9 storeys for a great view of the city. There is also a lovely teahouse at the back of the temple that is by a big pond with terrapins and koi carp in it. We went to the silk museum and saw some interesting old samples of silk (the region is famous for its silk making), and also learnt a lot about the process of silk production and weaving.
We took a boat trip around the city from the west side of the city, and enjoyed a long ride seeing some of the old city walls.
We found some good places to eat - there is a restaurant opposite the hostel which serves nice food in a beautiful setting, although it seemed to always be very quiet for some reaaon. It wasn't that cheap I suppose, so maybe that's why. The dumpling place recommended by the lonely planet, called Yang Yang something, is very good, and worth a look. We ordered way too much though - the portions were big! We went to a hot pot restaurant in the west side of the town which was great fun once we had worked out how the system worked - you ordered a 'flavour' of hot pot, then the meat and vegetables to put in it. We really enjoyed trying various different styles of Chinese food, including some local specialities, while we were in Suzhou. We also went for dinner at a place called the Banana Leaf (a chain we think) - it served good Asian food, and also got us both up dancing half way through our meal with the musicians and dancers that worked there!
We found that the postal system is much more expensive to send things home than we imagined - so you'll have to wait until we get back I'm afraid!
We found out that a boat no longer runs from Suzhou to Hangzhou, so we had to scrap that idea, and on Sunday 27th April, we travelled to Hangzhou by train instead. It took about 2.5 hours I think, and was a very easy journey. Sunday was mainly taken up by travelling to Hangzhou. We tried to get a taxi from the train station to the hostel, but the taxi driver didn't seem to want to take us to the hostel (!), so we walked. It wasn't actually that far, and we enjoyed the walk to orientate ourselves in teh city. The actual city of Hangzhou isn't anything special - it's the area by the lake (where the hostel is) that is the main attraction.
We had a walk around the area and then had dinner at a place called Chamate by the water. It was very poor service, so I wouldn't recommend it! The food was fine, and the location by the water was cool, but we didn't really enjoy it as much as we should have done. Back at the hostel we claimed the 2 free beers we had been given on arrival since there had been a mix up with not providing enough lockers for us... and we sat outside chatting. 3 Australians studying Chinese in Beijing and on holiday in Hangzhou came to chat to us, and we enjoyed sharing stories and experiences about China.
Yesterday, we had breakfast at the hostel and then set about booking a hostel in Nanjing, our next stop, for Friday, and walked to te train station to buy a train ticket. We eventually got a god deal, but we had to join 3 different queues and waited for ages. The novelty of train ticket booking in China has worn off now, and it's just annoying how time consuming it can be!
We then got lunch at the Starbucks near to the hostel - we had been told that it was 'the best Starbucks in the world' by someone we met at the last hostel, and thought we should check out the view. It wasn't bad, but nothing amazing, so we were a bit confused! We did enjoy our iced green tea frappes though!
We spent the whole afternoon walking around the West Lake. It took about 3.5 to 4 hours to do this at a lazy pace, stopping off along the way to look at things. It was really beautiful, especially seeing the boating lake by the Su Causeway. When we were almost back to the hostel, we saw another Starbucks by the lake, and this one did look like it had amazing views of the lake, so we thought we'd have to check it out to see once and for all! We sat on the top balcony with our drinks and enjoye the view, watching bats swoop around to eat the midges on the lake.
By the time it was about 7pm, we headed to a noodle restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was called Kui Yuan, and served really good, and great value food.
On the way back to the hostel alongside the lake, we were lucky to see a fireworks display, and also a fountain display to music on the other side of the lake. We sat and watched these for a bit before heading back to the hostel. We watched some films in the TV room at the hostel before going to bed.
Sorry the Suzhou part of this update isn't fully explained, but I think I've mentioned all the things that we did in some order!
I'll update you all again soon.
Kate xxx
