Hanging Out Hangzhou Style
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2008
1
35
46
Trip End
Sep 04, 2008
Hangzhou,
Zhejiang,
China
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Adam's parents recommended it as their favorite city in the Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, Hangzhou circuit, but we traveling novices had only allotted ourselves less than 24 hours there. And it rained for approx. 12 of those hours. Needless to say, Hangzhou was a bust.
We arrived in Hangzhou by train from Shanghai in the early evening and didn't get settled into our hotel (Days Inn Asia!) until around dinner. We took a taxi to the popular West Lake area that serves as the city's main attraction. Even at night, you could tell that Hangzhou is very beautiful and had more of a beach town feel rather than a bustling metropolis. For starters, it was humid and the air smelled like salty sweat.
Once at West Lake, we perused the myriad of international cuisine options before deciding where to eat dinner. Chinese-fooded-out, we followed our noses to a curry house chain that was above average and where foreigners outnumbered the Chinese customers. Notably, they did have an Indian chef, but I know this because he spent a lot of time outside of the kitchen, so I don't know how much personal control he had over our curries.
Other memorable moments from that night in Hangzhou include: 1. Sitting in a cab with the windows rolled down with a bus's exhaust mushroom clouding into our car while we passed a billboard advertising Hangzhou's "clean air." 2. dancing to Chinese music on the boardwalk. They were doing a line dance like the Electric Slide that was similar enough I was overconfident I could join in and quickly learn it and different enough that I tripped over my feet the entire time. 3. At a large-scale map of Hangzhou artfully engraved in the boardwalk cement, Adam asked a woman where West Lake was. Instead of referring to the map on the ground, she pointed to the actual lake not 10 yards away and looked at him disdainfully.
We overslept the following morning though we had intended to get up early to enjoy a boat ride around the lake before leaving for the airport. While we hastily got ready, the skies opened up and it began to pour. We reckoned with our losses (how great could some World Culture Heritage Site lake be anyway?) and decided to take our time eating lunch in the hotel restaurant. At least we got the Hangzhou specialty, beggar's chicken, a full chicken steamed/soaked/roasted in a special sauce while wrapped up in a big leaf that is supposedly cooked in a clay pot. It was delicious.
