With a three-day weekend upon us we decided to take a short trip out of Changzhou to Hangzhou. Hangzhou is a 2 1/2 hour train ride from Changzhou, while we live North West of Shanghai, this city is South West of Shanghai so we were still about an hour away from Shanghai and the hospital had anything happened. The city translates in English to "Heaven on Earth" and consists of a much larger city than we currently live in, as well as a beautiful lake, West Lake that offers lots of scenery and tourist spots!
We were lucky enough to have a personal tour guide our first day there, the purchasing manager from Brian's office is from Hangzhou and was so sweet and proud to show us around her city! The Mid Autumn Festival is a day off when most Chinese families spend the day together so she was home to see her family. The first place she took us was to the Grand Canal which stretches from Hangzhou to Beijing and has been a great source for transporting goods through China. We boarded a boat and took about an 45 minute ride which Blake loved and saw old buildings, some of the sites in the city, lots of other boats and all the beauty of the city. Here are some of the photos taken from the boat!
After we got off the boat we were in an area filled with lots of museums and nearby West Lake. When we walked around a bit there was a craft fair and many vendors had their handmade goods to sell. There was some very beautiful handmade jewelry and scarfs and such there. I wandered around a bit and purchased a few items. There was a large bridge we had to cross, it was stairs all the way up and down the bridge with a flat part down the middle, Brian pushed Blake in the stroller along the flat part while battling scooters and bikes doing the same, one way over and one way back. When we reached the other side there was a lady selling from a basket some interesting looking items. I asked our friend what they were and she informed me they were Lily Pods, she said she has only seen them in the fall and in Hangzhou. We purchased 3 of them for 10 rmb ao just over $1usd and she showed us how to eat them. You pop a pod out of the lilly and then use your teeth to remove the outer skin of the pod, the inside is white and fairly solid, you want to also open that up and remove the seed in the middle as it is bitter. The taste is very similar to a buttery walnut, it was a bit of work for a snack but interesting and tasty!
On to our next adventure was a museum. The workmanship demonstration pavilion was really a neat place. Once inside it reminded me a bit of Greenfield Village in Michigan. When you walk in you are finding how everything used to be created, and today some items are still done the same way. There was a lady making West Lake silk umbrellas, Oilpaper umbrellas, purple sand pottery turned into tea pots, microgroove paper engraving, silk spun on a large machine, straw fans, wooden carvings, hand embroidery and Zhang Xiaoquan scissors forged from metal. Some of the items you were able to pay 10-20 rmb and make your own paper, pottery tea pot, or a straw fan. Some of the other items we were able to see were eggshell carvings that had all sorts of faces, shapes and words placed on the front onf a brown eggshell. There was hand beading and embroidered shoes, bamboo weaving and Ou molding. Everything was so interesting to look at but also see how they create it. If you are ever in Hangzhou I would recommend this museum. Bonus, the admission is free and they offer COLD drinks for purchase!
While wandering around West Lake it was a bit overcast but we didn't have any rain. It was beautiful to walk around and see some of the tourist attractions even though we didn't visit the Pagoda or Temple you can see them in the views. There are dragon boats you can ride across the lake and a few islands in the middle of the lake you can visit as well. There are tombs along the river of famous battle warriors that have lots of Chinese writing, luckily our friend could translate some of the stories for us, her English is great! Blake was very interested in some of the children's toys here and Brian bought him a bubble machine that he really enjoyed. I walked through some of the shops and found some hair sticks that you would pull your hair back and place in a bun, then like a pencil stick this decorative stick in to hold your hair in place. They were hand carved and very beautiful.
We had a really nice dinner at a restaurant called POST that was Chinese food, yes we do eat Chinese food in China! There were some very good dishes from shrimp to pork, friend rice and poached fish that we enjoyed but sadly didn't take any photos to share....we were hungry!
The next day we ventured to the aquarium on the lake in Hangzhou. It was a three story facility that was really fun. Blake and I had the opportunity to feed fish to large sea turtles, you could purchase a baby bottle with some sort of juice in it to feed the fish and we enjoyed the seal show as well. Here are some of our photos!
We would love to go back to Hangzhou as there was so much to see and we really only had two full days there, with Blake's naps in the afternoon.
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