3 September 2005 - This morning we’re on our way to Hangzhou. Instead of taking a coach or train, we’ve actually rented a chauffered car to drive us there and back in comfort.

Our journey began at 7am today, which probably isn’t the best thing ‘cos last night for dinner, we used the food delivery service and Tommy ended up having the runs the entire night. As a result both of us didn’t sleep much and were pretty zombified in the morning. Keeping my fingers crossed I won’t fall sick with the long day trip ahead.

Anyway after a harrowing experience where the driver just stopped short in the middle of the expressway to make a phonecall when he missed a turning and got lost, we finally arrived in Hangzhou after 2.5 hours in one piece. And in Hangzhou, where do you go? To the world-renowned West Lake (西湖) of course! I was particularly excited to see the place ‘cos on the flight to Singapore from Sydney, I had caught the movie “A West Lake Moment” starring Chen Kun and Zhou Xun (the stars of Balzac & the Little Chinese Seamstress), which was shot on location in erh, well, West Lake, and had already been enthralled by the magnificent beauty of the place. And indeed I wasn’t disappointed by the real thing… the crowds and the humid weather and the fact that I hadn’t slept a wink couldn’t dampen my awe as I took in the breathtaking scenery.

souvenir shops

Ooh, see the opening in the little boy’s pants: all the easier for him to poo with. Believe it or not, all the pants for little kids here are made this way?!? Is it really so hard to just pull their pants down? Lynn tells me that even in winter, the children’s bottoms are exposed to the elements… literally freezing their butts off!?!

This place is massive! We walked around for a couple of hours and only covered a fraction of it!

Little boats are available for hire, how more leisurely can it get?…

Camping Chinese style!

Great place for families and friends alike to hang out and relax…

How? Which one more cantik? Norrita or the lotus? Norrita of course…

Dancing court beauties. Isn’t Lynn and Norrita great fun? Can always count on them to pose for silly pictures.

Oh the fountain looked so cooling and refreshing that even I felt like jumping in with the kids!

Little china doll

Little museum within the park showing how the local imperial lotus wine is made.

An abundance of lotus plants!

Bigger boats are available for functions

local temple

local snacks — very cheap but very tasteless and scary-GREASY! Not worth the stomach space!

For lunch, our driver recommended us to eat at the “local village” instead of near the lake ‘cos it’s cheaper. So here we are…

Typical local restaurant.

Shopkeepers will rush out to bid you to their store.

When Lynn stepped into this restaurant, the locals got extremely excited, they still get tickled when they see an ang-mor. Didn’t stop here, too rowdy for us…

We finally chose a quiet little air-conditioned place that didn’t look too dirty. Here’s what we ordered:

Hoo hoo the local specialty, head, feet and all!

Very local taste, rather bland, reminds me of the food we’d used to get when we follow tour groups into Malaysia.

After lunch, we headed to a silk factory that was just round the corner.

Here’s the machinery for extracting the silk from the silk worms

Before — silk worm cocoons

After — naked silk worms

Spreading out the silk to make a comforter. Tommy’s mum got him one when she came a few months ago, it’s the softest thing you can sleep on… so comfy!

Jiang Zemin and Bush have been here?!?

Other than the West Lake, Hangzhou is also famed for its 龙井茶 (Dragon Well Tea), touted to be particularly fragrant due to unique properties in the waters of this area. So next we visited the Tea Museum here.

See this wall panel, the whole thing is made of tea, including the darker portions, and it smells really nice. Isn’t that incredible?

Up to our mischief again… actually don’t know if we’re actually allowed to pose in the displays, but didn’t see any sign wat…

The museum continues outdoors…

The tea plantation and the gorgeous landscaped gardens

Little chalets are available for rent on the property

The pagoda where Madam White Snake was supposed to be trapped for marrying a mortal

Before making our way back to Shanghai, we took a little breather in the downtown KFC. Had coffee and…

…Portugese egg tarts! Yes, the Chinese KFCs actually sell these, and in fact, they are very tasty! So buttery, hot and fresh! Haha I had two!

A final stop enroute back to Shanghai for dumplings!

They are the biggest supplier of dumplings for Shanghai. And I can see and taste why…

Whoa that night Tommy and I were so exhausted, we crashed and were sound asleep by 9+pm, out like a light both of us!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 5th, 2005 at 3:23 pm and is filed under General Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.