HANGZHOU

Hangzhou was our next stop and it was a contrast to busy Beijing with its peaceful scenery of lakes and rivers. After a 5 hour bullet train, we arrived and met up with our new tour guide Penny who took us straight to our first stop which was a tea garden where we were taught how the tea was made as well as being able to try some for ourselves. The tea was something I was really looking forward to trying and buying in China. This place, however, was very expensive so I held off until I could find somewhere cheaper. After the long train ride, that was the only thing we had time for on he first day and so after getting some tea, we ended the day. For tea we went to a Western style restaurant whose idea of pizza was cheese on bread with an assortment of fruits including banana. On the way back, we passed a park where people were dancing just like we'd seen in Beijing; we didn't get the chance to then and so we thought it was now or never and so we proceeded to join in and try and pick up the dance. Once it had finished, we wanted to teach them a routine so we decided the "Macarena" was a great dance to teach!

Day 2 in Hangzhou and it was a busy one. We headed to the West Lake where we a had a brief walk to take some picture before getting on a boat to take us around the lake and so we could get a great view of the surroundings. Boat rides lie this are probably one of y favourite, tourist type activity because you can usually see quite a lot while going round a lake. We then headed to another Buddhist Temple- the Lingyin Temple- which was very different to the one in Beijing with more outdoors to the temple including some amazing carvings of Budha in the side of a cave. We walked around the temple before heading the Six Harmonies Pagoda where we had a brief time here to walk around or walk up the tour. Mel and I decided to just walk around and after finding a cat with kittens proceeded to buy them some food and feed them. After a few hours, we headed to our hotel to get settled in before heading back to the West Lake where they have a water show. This was an incredible experience. It gave the illusion that people were walking on water and the whole performance was amazing. The way they'd turned the lake into an outdoor theatre was amazing; this was probably the best thing I saw in Hangzhou and was a great way to finish the brief time in Hangzhou off!

The next morning we headed to the station to get another bullet train. This time it was just an hour to our final stop Shanghai. I hope you're enjoying these recaps!

Hope you're doing great,

Sarah x