Hangzhou Picture Update

 Here is the promised picture update from my trip to Hangzhou almost a week later. Better late than never.

The first two are from the Shanghai Hongqiao station where most of the fast trains leave from. They travel at speeds of around 300km/h.

 The next few are of the town I was wondering through to find my hostel after taking a taxi ride.

Here is the hostel I stayed at for the duration of my trip.

They even grew their own tea, these are what the plants look like. I have better pictures of tea fields coming up.

And some random pictures followed by my trip to the six harmonies pagoda. It was 7 stories high from the inside but looks like 13 from the outside. There were a few paintings on each floor and the central roof on most floors had a different painting of a dragon.

Here is a better picture of a tea field. Hangzhou is famous for their green tea.

Outside of the pagoda there was a hill to climb which had a ton of statues, many of which were model pagodas.

Here is a picture of a more modern pagoda all lit up.

This is the food I ate the first day.

More random pictures of the little town I stayed in and the hostel.

A lot of pictures of the west lake and part areas around it.

Some pictures of the little cave and park area near the hostel.

My trip to the zoo. Also you would see these signs all over the city, I found them amusing.

The next is a series of my walk through part of Nanshan graveyard that continued into a climb of Jade Emperor Hill to the Taoist temple on top. The week before my trip was the Qing Ming festival where people visit there ancestors graves and do things like burning paper money, incense, and eating food.

I found this abandoned bamboo ladder and wanted to see if it could hold my weight.

 It didn't.

 My shoes turned sort of green from walking in the woods but it is not very visible in this picture.

They only let you take pictures in certain parts of the temple.

 This is a big pit where they burned a ton of incense at once. People would buy packet of it and throw it in.

 Some really thick bamboo I crossed on my hike.

 Food and puppies.

 I bought this popcorn from some guy selling it on the street where he had a little kettle. It was a bit sweet kind of like kettle corn.

One of the hostel bathrooms had a really short roof.

 A few random images from the city.

There was an area around the northwest section of the lake where you could climb up a hill and then climb on top of rocks to get a nice view of the city and the lake.

A few more from the city and another park are I stumbled across.

Here is a public square area where music was played and people danced for fun and exercise.

I wondered into what happened to be Hangzhou's annual tea festival. There were stall set up selling tea, food, and all kinds of trinkets.

I also found an antique store where there was a lot of interesting looking things. There aren't many real antique stores in China since it is Illegal to export cultural items out of the country made before 1979 (this date is probably not exactly correct but you get the picture).

 There was a sort of old town here with a ton of shops and street food vendors.

This ends my large picture update of Hangzhou. This ought to keep you satisfied for a while. I think I will provide a short text update tomorrow so the curious can know what I have been up to since my trip.

Remember, winners don't do drugs.

-Michael Nemchick