China - Hangzhou

For our last day in China we took an early train ride to Hangzhou, a city famous for West Lake, a large and beautiful lake that has supposedly inspired many great poets and artists.    The day actually turned out to be less about Hangzhou and doing the things we wanted to do before we left the China to go back to the United States like eat more yummy and cheap food, get a massage, and go shopping.

We started off by taking a 14 cent public bus that stopped right across the lake.  Unfortunately we didn’t know the name of the stop or exactly how many stops away it was, but I figured we would be able to as we approached.  I don’t know where I got that idea into my head.  Rule #1 of riding public buses in China – attempt to get to the bus exit doors one stop in advance because you will have to push through an crowd that will barely budge, and the bus driver will not wait for you to make your way out.  Rule #2 – you probably won’t be able to see out the window to pinpoint your location due to the masses of people.  I kept spotting potential landmarks, but none of them were on my map, so I made a judgment call to get off and lo and behold somehow we were right across from the lake.  We took a glance at the lake, felt the heat, and walked 20 steps to my mom’s favorite dessert place – Honeymoon dessert.  We ate at this place in probably about 7 times in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Hangzhou.  Our favorite dessert was the Mango with Pomelo and Sago.

 

We headed back out into the heat to walk around the city and get our massages.  We also visited this cute touristy pedestrian walkway area where they sold lots of tea, and a side street full of delectable looking street foods.  I entertained the idea of eating the street food but was overcome by that old oil stench smell that I often came across in China that completely grossed me out.  We then walked along more of West Lake, stopped at Honeymoon again, and went shopping.

By this point we had about 40 minutes until our train left, so we tried to catch a cab.  The train station was not far, probably only 2 km or a little over a mile away, but nobody would take us.  I think it a combination of rush hour, shift changes, and it just wasn’t the direction they wanted to go.  Every cab we were able to pull over ended up rejecting us.  A bit frantic, we started walking toward the station even though by this point we couldn’t make it there in time.  A few huge blocks into our walk, we saw a cab reject a man, and my mom ran after it, and for some reason this cab driver took pity on us and agreed to take us to the train station.  Although I don’t know what he was saying, his laughter and tone translated into Silly women, their train leaves in 15 minutes, hahahaha.  We were a bit afraid of what he would charge us because he wouldn’t start the meter, I thought he would really rip us off and charge us over 50 yuan, but he asked for 15 yuan.  We jumped out and ran through security and to our gate, and made it with time to spare.  With that last adrenaline rush, we were on the train back to Shanghai, and soon back to the US.