One Grain of Salt Please!

One of the few remaining canals
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Welcome to China's "Most beautiful City" or at least the CCT (China's TV network) version of it.  The actual city itself is the same as any other but the lake area isn't too bad.  In the days of yore, Hangzhou was a water city, connected by a network of canals but those days are gone; steel, rubber and exhaust dominate now.  The remnants of the canals are picturesque but the stagnant green waters cower away between giant buildings.  Our advice is to compare it with other Chinese cities, not New Zealand ones!

NZ needs buildings like this
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A tout at the train station sorted us out with a cheap hotel (RMB 130) but we don't have the pinyin name for it and no one spoke English.  Still it worked out well.  We were a 15 minute walk to the lake and 10 minute from the train station.  An added bonus was a bustling, neighbourhood market.

we were confronted by swarms of Chinese tourists wearing caps and following flags

We wandered to the lake for a stroll and checked out the YHA, which looked very good although a bit more expensive than where we were staying.  In the evening we spotted a really cool office building - 20 stories high and ablaze with multi-coloured lights.  After booking tickets to Suzhou we were ready to hit the hay!

Exhibit at the Silk Museum
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Judgement day had arrived for Hangzhou, Sean and Adrienne were off to see its sights.  Buses in China tend to be incredibly confusing for foreigners but the YHA put us on the right track and we were off to the Silk Museum on bus K12 (RMB 2).  An excellent exhibition detailing the silk making process, as well as displaying examples of different weaves and patterns from various eras. Oh and it's free!!

The mercury was rising but we moved onto the Tea Museum (bus Y2, RMB 3; Y = tourist bus).  Not a bad museum.  It goes over tea growing and processing, then types of tea and eventually tea preparation.  Being low on water, we decided it was time to press on.

A view from the Tea Museum
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Bus Y2 whisked us away to the cable car with a burst of Chinese announcements.  RMB 40 bought us a return ride and a good view over the city (pollution free!!).  The cable car was classic, there were groups of four gondolas, chained together.  We're assuming that it's a safety feature but we're unsure if that's good or bad.  We wanted to be in the last car on the way up and the first on the way down to get the best views but it wasn't meant to be.

The gardens are meant to be a highlight of Hangzhou and we decided to head to Yellow Dragon Cave (RMB 20) for some peace and quiet.  On arriving, we were confronted by swarms of Chinese tourists wearing caps and following flags.  Screw that!  We were finished.  It had been a hot day and we were on our feet most of the time.

The chained gondolas... dodgy or extra safe?
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Our escape was meant to be a short bus ride to the train station, then a quick walk to the hotel.  Think again!  As it turns out, bus K28 does go to a train station, just not the right one.  Eventually we ended up at the hotel about 2 hours after we wanted to be there...

Hangzhou was nice enough and would be definitely more appealing in cooler weather but we probably needed a grain of two of salt to help swallow its slogan.