Hangzhou, a tourist place

I went to Hangzhou (Hanjo is the pronunciation) last weekend. If we browse inside Airasia website, Hangzhou is among the popular destination offered by Airasia. You can get a flight ticket from LCCT to Hangzhou as cheap as RM400 one way.

Hangzhou is a famous tourist place. It’s just about 2 hours journey to Shanghai and Hangzhou can offer a lot of traditional place to visit. There is a Chinese say “Above there is heaven, below there are Suzhou and Hangzhou”. I’m not going to elaborate on the history of this area but Hangzhou used to be a re-treat place for Chinese Emperor during winter. Winter in Beijing is harsh but winter in Hangzhou is acceptable. Plus, Hangzhou can offer some brilliant and beautiful scenery during winter.

There are two things about Hangzhou.

1.) The silk industry
2.) The legendary Chinese tea

If you somehow plan to go to Hangzhou next time, never forget about the two important things above. Hehehehe….

Hotel is very cheap. You can get a decent 4 stars hotel in just around RM180 – RM250 per night. I came at the wrong time as Shanghai Expo really spoils the hotel price. But I managed to get a decent hotel with just RM100 only it’s just a bit far from the main attraction, which is The West Lake.

There are a lot of small green booth that we can find easily around 3km radius from West Lake. We can rent a bicycle for RM1 per hour. The best part is, you can return the bicycle at any of the green booth that you want. If you rent it from booth A, you can always return it at booth Z eventhough the two booth are so far away from each other. Only that, you need to put RM150 as a deposit and passport number before you can proceed.

 Here, Lotto has its own boutique. Even Bata also is so expensive that they say it's was made in Italy.

I went to Hangzhou with a Malaysian Chinese friend but he just surrender to wake up as early as 5.30am..so, I went to West Lake alone that morning. The picture was taken at 6.00am. The high Pagoda at the back called Leifeng. Picture can be beautiful if the sun shine that morning....urghhh...

You have to pay a small money to go inside these two places. The place open at 7.30am.

Shoalin are offering their prayer. I thought I'm gonna see some Kung Fu stuff here...but I was wrong.

This a statue of Bai Suzhen (a White Snake Princess). It got its own story.

This is what I like. I climbed the highest level of Leifeng Pagoda. The Pagoda that we see today is a result from re-building activity by the govenrment. But the Pagoda sit on the same original place. The re-built Pagoda has the same height as the original one.

This is inside the highest level of the Pagoda.

View from the top facing the road. The sky was quite hazy that day so, picture are quite dull in the sense of colour.

This one I took it on my own with the West Lake as a background.

Of cause, the Pagoda's shape is hexagon. At level 4 inside the Pagoda has a wood carving (it looks like wood, I'm not sure what it is but have seen the similiar 3D carving in Bangkok) at every corner. It is a story about the White Snake Princess . This is panel number 2, similiar to the statue that we saw earlier.

Then I took a tour (on feet) around the West Lake. The lake is so huge that it is like you're looking at open sea. In the middle of the lake, there got a causeway that cross the lake. The picture above is somewhere at the middle of the causeway.

Scenery accros the lake is pleasing. Only that, they are so many people with so many activities that in the end, there is no privacy in enjoying the scene.

Well, this Auntie seem to be disagree with me...But we share a common thing which is, Hangzhou is a clean and nice place to visit.

I always wanted to go to Hangzhou. Since I finally reached here, I think I have completed my journey in China so far. I have no wish to go anywhere else. Anything that come after this, will be a bonus for me. Lovely