Hangzhou - a must see resort near Shanghai.
Generally all the business folks have a day to do sightseeing in shanghai and they go to Suzhou the silk city as an outing, if they have already seen the city. Suzhou is a tourist town, and is worth visiting. I found out a place called Hangzhou which boasts a big lake called West Lake. Hangzhou is further south than Suzhou, about 120 miles from Shanghai. So most people do not visit when they are on a business trip. But it is a place, you should go to, even if you have only a day at hand.
We decided to go at a last minute and did not have enough time to plan, we made all possible mistakes in getting there and still it was worth it. so I want to write this so people will get more time to see the place than to travel there.
You can find a train to go to Hangzhou from Shanghai. If you want to save time in getting to the lake, make sure you go to the downtown station in Hangzhou, not the south station. The tickets are sold before the day of travel, so you want to book them in advance. Take the fast train, so you need to spend only 2 hrs traveling, rather than 4 hrs like we did! When you go to the North station (in downtown) the lake is quite close. You can walk or take a cab. Hangzhou city is quite big, as you would expect a small city in China, still has lot of people. Once you land on the lake, you enter a different world. This lake is home to dragon boat racing in June. so you see families, people rowing there boats and having fun. There is a line to get a boat to row. So if you are not too keen on rowing yourself, there are boat rides you can take. One is a small boat ride, you can take your food in the boat and eat while watching the beautiful surroundings (at least ice cream or hot tea/coffee depending on the season). it is an half an hour ride and all you need to do is enjoy!
Then there is a dinner cruise, but the boat is royal Chinese boat. It is not too huge and is very artistically made. The royal families vacationed here long time ago and these boats and the architecture around the lake, shows you a glimpse of how they lived.
There are quite a few tea houses by the lake, but the Chinese do not serve much food in their tea houses. People seem to drink just tea or beer with peanuts and cherry tomatoes! There are some open food makers who grill the meat and have popcorn.
The lake is huge, there is a pagoda on once side and a temple on the other, you can walk to both these sites. The walk is by the river, It is very refreshing to walk by this willow treed path. People come and play music there, kids play, people chat, paint. In spite of so many people around you, there is a certain calmness to this place. It felt very relaxing to be by the lake, We had spent about 6-7 hrs getting their by slow train and bus, but even then once we got there, it was worth it.
I hope you go and have as much fun as we did.
3000+ mile road trip in winter: Portland OR to Tucson, AZ and small towns in between.
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