Hangzhou

To read the travel brochures about Hangzhou, you would think that it is a quiet water town that somehow has escaped the onslaught of the modern world.

Um, yeah.

Hangzhou is “small water town” of about 9 million people.

There is lots to do in and around Hangzhou, but I pretty much just stuck to West Lake, where the authors of the travel brochures were most likely referring to.  It actually is quiet and seemingly removed from the encroachment of the modern world.  Not totally, but enough to enforce the point.  I hadn’t really realized how loud Shanghai is until I got to West Lake, specifically when I was in the Shrine to the Qian (Tchee-an) Kings.  Even though I could still hear horns honking from the traffic, the birds in the courtyard were louder.  I sat on a concrete step and stayed there, listening to the birds, until I was uncomfortable for sitting on a concrete step…

As I looked through my pictures, I did take quite a few of Leifeng (lay-fung) Pagoda.  Kind of hard not to, because it is a prominent point of presence on the lake.  The tower that stands there today is not the original.  The original was burned by Japanese pirates about 800 years ago, but only the wood elements burned leaving the brick structure behind.  Believing the bricks to have healing powers, the locals helped the tower disappear brick by brick until it crumbled in 1924.  The tower you see today was built over the top of the ruins of the old one.  On entering the structure, you can see those ruins and people offer gifts by tossing them over the glass wall.

The weather for this trip was about the best I’ve had since I got here.  Upper 70’s, slight breeze and the sun was out all day.  The lake has about a 16k circumference (~10 miles) and I pretty much walked the whole thing.  There is an island in the middle that you can take boat out to and then from there you can embark to other portions of the lake.  Instead of short-cutting the tour, after walking the island I caught a boat back to where I started.

I have noticed that the numbers of people that ask me to take a picture with them is directly proportional to how many people I’m with.  I’m approached the most when I’m by myself.  Which is one reason why I demand to have a picture taken with my camera, too, because if I didn’t nobody in the States would believe me that it ever happens.  Well, on this particular day…  Hmmm.  I think this is a day better told with pictures.  Click on the first one to start the carousel – narrative with the pictures…

Shanghai Honqiao Railway Station – one three major railway stations in Shanghai. All I have to do is buy a ticket and find out where I need to get on my train. Simple, right?

OK, so here’s my ticket. Do have to admit I panicked at first. Not because it’s written in Chinese, but because Hongqiao and Hongzhou may look very different with English letters, but when spoken in Chinese, phonetically they don’t sound terribly different to an American ear. Hong-chow vs. Hong-joe. So when I saw Shanghai HongQiao I feared that I had said it wrong until I realized that was the name of the station I was at (dumbass would be an appropriate comment here). So then it was time to decipher the ticket and figure out what track, what time. 20 was the number with the largest font on the ticket, so I went with that for my gate. 15D? Guessing seat number – not sure what the 13 is next to it, so we’ll figure that out later. Not 9:56 yet, so that has to be my departure time…

Gate 20 was my number. 9:56 was the right departure time… Turns out 13 was for the car number. And I’m in the train and off! Even though I am comfortable and do have legroom, this seat was certainly made for someone with a slighter build…

I was told what bus to take from the railway station to West Lake, but I decided to walk because it wasn’t that far… It took me about 45 minutes to finally pick my way there. I needed to have more offline GPS maps downloaded to my phone, so there was a wrong turn or two. I also didn’t know there was a subway system in Hangzhou, but saw a station very near the lake – that proved to be handy later and I rode it back when it was dark and I was tired. Next decision – which way to turn first. Long sidewalk to the left. Food to the right. Right turn it is…

After my turn to the right, a short walk gave me the first look at Leifeng Tower. All the other pagodas I have seen so far don’t allow the public to the top. You already know I did make it there, but when I took this picture, I still wasn’t sure…

I took a boat out to the island in the middle and seated in front of me was a young Chinese girl, maybe about 5. She couldn’t stop staring at me. So I smiled, waved at her, and said, “Ni hao!” Her parents, who had been talking about me since I got on the boat, immediately assumed I could speak Chinese and started asking me questions. My Chinese isn’t good enough that I could keep up with them, but I could get a few things across. When we got off the boat, the mother asked to have a picture. I tried to get the little girl in the picture, too, but she was far too interested in climbing a tree…

Rarely when someone asks me for a picture do I get away with just one. There’s almost always someone else…

Kind of interesting, looking at these structures from this side. They seem very quiet, very reserved, serene. On the other side of those walls are a number of retail outlets and two restaurants. Had to laugh a bit when I got over there…

I was standing by the shoreline, looking out at the hills when this woman stepped on my foot. She was actually trying to compare her foot to mine and just had really bad aim. Actually, as loud as she was, I think she might have been tipping the bai jiou…

You can see behind me a cutout of the retail area from the previous picture across the pond. This was a group of 4 and they kept swapping one person out until everyone had their own picture with the other two and me…

The Chinese women have a thing for their heels and they wear them just about everywhere. I even saw one woman run across the lawn at the Microsoft office with stilettos on so she could play Frisbee. And this woman wanted to ride her bike in heels. No wonder the Chinese are so good at gymnastics…

Lots of times when I’m walking, I can sense someone walking up behind me or next to me so their partner in crime can snap a shot without having to ask me. But at that point, they’re walking at my pace and they’ll try to keep it up so as to be less obvious. So I’ll only walk faster just to have fun with them (it’s the little things)… I had that feeling when walking down the main path around the lake and took a quick turn on a smaller sidewalk right next to the water. As soon as I did, I heard this group of girls complain that I had given up the game. As I looked back at them, I decided to raise my camera and wave it, international sign language for “Picture?” They literally squealed with delight and ran over to where I was, demanding a man sitting on a bench get up to take the picture for everyone. My ego didn’t need this. But I like it, anyway. 🙂

The tower is perched on top of a hill, so they have installed escalators to get to the top. I’m a glutton and took the stairs.

At each level in the tower were large elaborate panoramas carved out of wood. this closeup shows the detail that went into the level of carving. Each of these flower buds is only 1/4″ in length..

Looking back down from the top of the tower to the stairs where I started my climb. I also took the stairs in the tower, too. The line was too long for the elevator and I really didn’t have the patience to stand in line. It was a bit crowded on the ledge and I could tell more picture requests were coming…

Just like before, when one picture is asked for, there’s bound to be others. This time it got a bit crazy.

One of the shortest adults I’ve taken a picture with. Yes, she’s an adult. And I didn’t notice until I saw the picture that she had even taken her shoes off to make herself even shorter…

The girl on the right – “Anna” – followed me around for a bit after this picture was taken. She had gotten separated from her friends and she used me as a locator for them when we got back down to the bottom.

“We are Americans.” This was Joel. He’s from Pennsylvania studying in Shanghai. He’s also the one that took most of the pictures for me because I couldn’t keep up….

After the first request landed, they actually formed a line to get pictures taken. Those with cameras generally stood here. For a bit, I quit taking my own pictures and instead too pictures of the people taking pictures. This one was about my favorite because of the look on the face of the guy in the red jacket. So, I didn’t have the patience to stand in line for an elevator, but I stood here posing for about 15 minutes.

There was another kind of boat you could rent – one that would just generally paddle you around for a while. I didn’t do one of these, but probably will with the family – we’re going to come back here.

This wasn’t actually the last one. She was walking with her brother and he wanted a picture, too. I didn’t ask for that one…

A “snack” plate of munchies next to what had been the best beer ever. Well, at least until the next one arrived.

This formidable fellow had a nickname when he was young. he was basically called “saved by old lady” because when he was born, his father believed the boy was ill-omened and he wanted to throw him into a well. An old woman took in the child and raised him. He later became a king. Sounds like the next Disney movie plot…

When I go back, I’m going to have to bring my tripod and try this picture again. This was about as still as I could keep myself. All in all it was a very good day. Walked somewhere between 13-15 miles, got to enjoy the sun, and caused a media frenzy at the top of Leifeng tower. The only bad thing about the trip was I couldn’t fall asleep on the train back to Shanghai because I was afraid I would sleep through my stop… Zai Jian!