In July this year, I had an opportunity to travel from hong kong across China to the mountains in the west of China and it was one hell of a trip.
This is a small write up about my second stop on the journey which was the beautiful city of Hangzhou. Hangzhou is home to the famously known West Lake and many other great things but for this post, I will focus mainly on the lake and try to keep it short and sweet. I arrived in Hangzhou with a good friend of mine after we spent a few days in hong kong with some other friends. I was there for a week in total and my girlfriend joined me a few days into the trip which made for a nice romantic experience but I won't get soppy on here.
Anyway a day in and my friend Jordan insisted we head into central Hangzhou and check out the big lake there. The weather was great but very humid which made it a little uncomfortable at times but at the same time a nice change from the dry heat in my home city of Jinan. We arrived at the lake around 6 ish after a good stroll around the city and some good food, right before sunset.
The lake area was amazing surrounded by a mix of peaceful parks, walkways, bars, and restaurants and on the other side of the lake a giant pagoda adding the traditional eastern setting to the whole place. It was just an all in all great place to spend the day and you can experience it in lots of different ways. Along the side of the lake, there are many piers with different kind of boats offering trips across the lake. Some boats do a lap around the lake while the others are bigger dragon boats with dining options onboard or if you like a small two-person peddle boat or rowboat they have those too.
We decided to just walk around the lake and check out a few parks and bars along the way and although it took a couple of hours it was well worth it. The bars are all nicely decorated and are foreign friendly with a good selection of imported beers and IPA's. The parks along the way are gorgeous with lots of streams, ponds and lots of paths to explore it all.
The views of the lake from anywhere are great and sunset makes for a great photo opportunity as you will see when you see the many photographers with there giant cameras and tripods located opposite the pagoda.!Rightly so as the view when the lights come on are quite spectacular and you will surely join the ranks with your camera at the ready, waiting for a gap in the passing pedestrians.
When my better half Andrea showed up I couldn't help but take her to the same place to enjoy the views and get a drink or two but to my surprise, there was an added extra that day. At around 8.30pm there was one of the best fountain shows I have seen only to be bested by the fountains of the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The show went on for a long time I actually lost track of time but if I was to guess maybe around 20 minutes long. The fountains stretched for about 50 to 60 meters along the edge of the lake and a big seating area was set up for spectators which added a nice touch. The show was in sync with the music, the patterns and lights were great and it turned out to be the perfect start to a great night on the lake.
I know this looks like a small riverside house but it is actually one of the big dragon boats you can take a ride on. sorry about the bad picture.
After this we took pretty much the same walk as i previously mentioned with an added stop at a nice lake side restaurant for a bite to eat before sleeping it all off. The next day we went in search of some markets to try some of the local food and tea. I don't remember the name of the market but it wasn't too far from the central area, it had everything we were looking for and more. We walked for hours through streets of small shops and restaurants trying all kinds of food, they even had all the creepy insects you may have heard about but this wasn't on my menu for the day.
We found some shops selling the local tea leaves and most of them had free tasting areas with all kinds of different flavors to try. I even found a stand where I could try on some old Chinese battle amour. There were all kinds of old traditional shops and even an old pharmacy with tall shelves full of vases still used for traditional Chinese medicine.
All in all Hangzhou is a beautiful city with lots on offer, the lake in particular. The next day we headed to Chengdu for the next leg of the trip so I will write a post about that tomorrow.
Thank you again for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and if so please drop me an up-vote, Thanks.
Here are the links to the first and last leg of this journey if you want to have a read.
https://steemit.com/travel/@burkulese/hong-kong-the-king-of-cities
https://steemit.com/travel/@burkulese/the-beauty-and-devestation-of-jiuzhaigou