Five go adventuring in Hangzhou

The last time I went to the small city (pop 6 million) of Hangzhou I came away with the impression that it was just another Chinese city. Since then Sam took his mother there on a day trip and they came away raving about it. Therefore we decided to give it another go with my mother in tow.

Now veterans of the high speed railway we boarded our train in Shanghai and within an hour we had travelled 200 miles and arrived in Hangzhou. We got a taxi to our hotel, checked in and checked out the facilities and then headed away from the city to the other side of the lake.

It was beautiful and wonderfully leafy and green as we pulled up outside our restaurant on the water.

The food was fantastic and after lunch we walked through the tea plantations to the tea museum.

We bumped in to another set of twins also wearing red and green!

It was lovely watching the tea being picked and enjoying some beautiful scenery.

After looking around the museum we decided to head up the hill towards the famous Longjin (Dragon's Well) village and see the well. The walk was quite long and very hairy as we kept having to dive in to bushes to avoid buses and cars. Eventually we saw a sign tucked away behind a bush pointing to the well. We enjoyed stirring the water and seeing the local wildlife nearby!

As it was getting late we decided to jump of a bus to get us back near the lake much to the delight of the other passengers. We managed a conversation in broken Chinese and had lots of photos and video footage taken of us!

The bus came to stop in the car park of a stadium and we all had to get off. We then went in search of a taxi conscious that happy hour in the executive lounge was about to begin! Taxis' in Hangzhou are plentiful but notoriously hard to get. As several passed us with their green light on we waved to them but they refused to stop! Eventually one pulled over but drove off after we said where we were going. It wasn't just because we were foreigners as the locals were being refused too. I kept noticing small delivery type trucks with green lights in so Sam flagged one down. It was an illegal taxi and he shook his head when we said where we wanted to go. I then offered him £10 and he opened the door! Suddenly we knew how to get a taxi in Hangzhou! We made it back to happy hour with plenty of time to spare.

The following day we went out on the lake and then had a lazy afternoon by the hotel swimming pool. On the Sunday our train wasn't until the afternoon so we went to Longgin Temple and walked up the mountain looking at the Buddhas carved in to the stone. We made it back to our hotel after bribing another taxi driver and got the train back to Shanghai.