Why Everyone Should Go To Hangzhou.

Saturday 1 March 2014

¥2.00      Breakfast (Bao)
¥3.00      Kiln-baked bread 
¥30.00    Postcards
¥20.00    Dinner

Sunday 1 March 2014
¥24.50    Breakfast (Casa Miel)
¥10.00    Lunch (at the shopping mall)
¥3.00      Corn
¥18.00    Dinner

Total: ¥110.50 ($21.10)

Weekly Total: ¥4694.70

Total Spend: ¥4694.70 ($894.20 AUD)

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I really want to blog everyday and write about all these amazing new things that I'm experiencing. But perhaps the one major hindrance to that at the moment is my crappy internet connection. 

On Saturday, I went for a walk to West Lake (Xihu).  West Lake is the main attraction in Hangzhou, and it's a huge area surrounded by a botanical garden, and there are many 'scenic spots' along the way. It's only 20 minutes away from my college.

The first landscape I saw wasn't even properly Xihu yet, but I was already blown away by the beauty of it all. I had been craving an escape to nature the whole week, so it was overwhelming to be presented with such a beautiful and tranquil scene. It almost brought tears to my eyes.. I couldn't believe that I was living in a heavily polluted city that literally had a piece of heaven right in the middle of it all.

It was really refreshing to be there. I had walked there alone, and had enjoyed every minute of being alone with nature. It's as if nature can restore your mind and reset it. Before that, I had been feeling agitated, tired, perhaps overwhelmed by the whole experience of being in Hangzhou. But as I was walking back to my room, I could feel that my thinking had shifted. I suddenly wanted to run again.

Along the road back from Xihu I saw this man making this bread.. there was a huge line and it smelt delicious.

It goes by an honesty policy here. Since he's busy making the bread, he just gets you to throw money into his money box. 

Just one of the many sights in Xihu. You can feel Spring in the air with all the little flowers budding.

This was the first scene I saw going into Xihu. Isn't it just breathtaking?

I enjoyed my alone time exploring Xihu so much, that on Sunday I decided to tackle the second thing I wanted to do while in Hangzhou - visit my favourite store in the world.

On the map, it said it was 4.4km away, so after breakfast on Sunday morning, I decided to take a long walk there. It's actually the completely opposite direction from the city centre, heading up North from Zheda. I was a bit worried to be honest - I thought perhaps it had closed down, or it was the wrong address. But I decided to do a little exploring anyway.

4.4km ended up being a very long walk. Many times I wanted to pick up a public bike and ride, but I couldn't figure out how to get the card to unlock the bike. I wanted to jump on the bus, but I felt waiting was pointless. 

I was walking down Fengtan Lu, which felt somewhat like a highway as there were very run down buildings around and they felt very far away and spaced a part. I was starting to give up hope when suddenly a giant shopping mall emerged from the residential area, and I was greeted with a big, red, beautiful H&M sign and a giant GAP sign which signalled the kind of international brands I was looking for. 

InTime City.. kinda in the middle of nowhere.

In China, the giant shopping malls with international brands are usually very empty. It's the local boutiques which sell cheap stuff that get all the people. This shopping mall was huge - it had an ice rink, a cinema, a million ice cream stores... and every shop you could think of (except Zara for some reason though).

After walking around the shopping mall for two hours, I decided to catch the bus back to my dorm (Route 73). I had done heaps of walking already that day, but again due to really bad internet connection I was compelled to go for a run to Xihu.

This time I took a right turn into the Botanical Gardens as opposed to running around the lake. The gardens were quite empty so it was a little scary, especially when I ran through the Bamboo Forest and all you could hear was the bamboo leaves swaying way above. 

Bamboo Forest inside the Botanical Gardens.

 It was scary because I was alone, but really I shouldn't have felt scared because I had great visibility in front and behind me, and there were actually a lot of people walking around the gardens.

Beautiful scenery inside the Botanical Gardens.