Hangzhou

I decided to go to Hangzhou for a few days vacation for the Chinese New Year. It is a lake town about 2 hours by train from Shanghai. My Chinese co-worker set it up for me. She was going up there to pray at a famous Buddhist temple and when she heard I wanted to go, she offered to be my guide.

Hangzhou is a lake town that is really nice because it has lots of hills, trees and gardens with canals and lakes throughout. Since it is really nice and all of China is on vacation, it was jam packed with tourists. The good part is that if you walk an extra 5 minutes away from the noisy and colorful attractions or better yet, go somewhere that is not accessible by escalator, you can escape the crowds. Sabrina told me that the crowds were actually quite light because of the cool weather.

West Lake

We hit the Lingyin temple so Sabrina could pray to the Buddha. Much like Frank trying to find the cop station when I first arrived, Sabrina approaches everyone and anyone to get directions. A shouting match usually ensues, maps come out and in the end she is pretty good buddies with the person who she was just yelling at.

We taxied, bussed and walked to the temple. It is a huge complex with grounds, caves, its own mountain and hundreds or maybe thousands of Buddhas. Sabrina had a book with handwritten directions as to the best way to pray. She needed to make sure to hit the right Buddhas (she prayed to no less than 25 Buddhas). They all have different powers and you have to make sure you have the right number of incense sticks for each one.

You think praying might be peaceful. Not in China. There were thousands of people throwing elbows to get a place to pray. They were also firing up huge bunches of incense. I am amazed no one caught on fire with the open flame everywhere and all those people jammed in there. I had to jump out of the way of flames several times from some of the faithful waving their incense around with their eyes closed.

Insane Prayer Festival


After the insane prayer ceremony, we climbed the mountain to see the Buddha in charge of wealth. It was a tough climb. Luckily at the top and in front of the temple was an old leather couch where the pilgrims could take a load off.

After the Lingyin Temple, we took the wrong bus despite Sabrina asking at least 5 people how to get the bus. So we pushed our way off and got another bus that took us to the 6 Harmonies Pagoda which was pretty cool but I was a little worried that it would fall down (again).

After the Pagoda, Sabrina wanted to check out the Song Dynasty town a little ways down the road (See the Song dynasty town entry).

The next day, we rented bikes for 75 cents an hour. Mine was a little tweaked and started to shimmy pretty bad when I got the speed up. It turns out that the old saying about riding a bike is true which is good because I had not ridden a bike in about 4 years and in Hangzhou you have to share the bike lanes with people, cars and busses. It turns out that it was a great way to get around and see lots of pools and canals and it gets the adrenaline up trying to avoid everything. I followed Sabrina who would plow right into a crowd of people working the bell the whole time (unless she stopped to ask directions). At first I thought there was no way we could ride but it seems that people and cars tend to make a path for bikes. Busses do not.

We also took a ferry that was (big shocker) jam packed with people. I tried to locate the life jacket station in case of swamping but it was definitely not marked if it existed. We checked out some islands that had neat architecture and big pools of carp.

These kids spoke perfect English but didn't where the lifejackets were.

The food on my Chinese vacation consisted mostly of spicy hot pot. I let Sabrina order everything. I think she got upset since I had no opinion but I have no basis for an opinion so I just eat everything until I can form one. If I kept track I think I would be pretty close to eating every part of a cow. The good news is that almost anything tastes good when you boil it in spicy soup. I also drank the local brew which proudly proclaims on the bottle, “Made with No Formaldehyde”.

We took the late train back to Shanghai. I was not surprised when they let several hundred people off the train only to find out that the subway was closed, the busses were not running because the drivers are on vacation and there was literally one taxi out front. Sabrina talked to 4 or 5 people and led me out to the street where she outran a bunch of guys to grab a taxi. We jumped in where she had a blow out argument with the driver which almost resulted in us having to get out but I think she convinced the driver to at least take me home before he booted her out. I did not ask as she jumped out once we were in the vicinity of my place.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was all of the smiles I got from people. I was definitely more of an oddity than in Shanghai. Lots of kids wanted to practice English with me since they are learning it in school. The old people loved it when I would smile and say “Ni Hao” to them.

Overall, my Hangzhou trip was really fun. It was great to have a local who could show me the sights. It was exhausting but we saw great scenery, some really interesting history and mixed it up with a heavy dose of insanity. I’m not sure if that is what Chinese people call relaxation but I am happy to be back in Shanghai and close to sauna in my apartments. Tonight I will be eating pizza I think.