A glimpse of Hangzhou
22.09.2010
We were supposed to have had a full day in Hangzhou, but because of transportation problems getting from Beijing to Shanghai, we chose to use the time in Shanghai instead, and ended up having only half an hour to take in Xi Hu (West Lake) which is Hangzhou's number one tourist spot - and yes it is pretty, even when you only get to spend 30 min there.
Hangzhou is one of the 'beautiful cities' of China, usually put into a sentence with Suzhou (which is also know as "China's Venice" due to its many water ways)
Hangzhou is in fact so famous, that it gets to be featured on the Chinese 1 RMB notes, as you can see below
<img class="yui-img" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/West_Lake_on_RMB.jpg">
Next to West Lake in Hangzhou they have also built a Xin Tian Di (roughly translated it becomes "The New Heaven on Earth") which is a property concept you can find all over China. The building concept is to build good quality housing and shops in scenic areas in old Chinese style.
From West Lake Kim and I got into a taxi a drove to the airport, and a thing as simple as a taxi ride can be illuminating: In China only the driver is, by law, required to wear a seat belt (and usually there are no seat belts on the back seat) But on our way to the airport a sign showed that for the next 2 km, there would be photo traps trying to catch drivers who neglected to wear seat belts; so the driver put on his seat belt (but not until he saw the sign) and as soon as we were past the traps, he took it off again - so much for safy!
Take care,
Eva Maria
Posted by EvaMariaTravels 17:00 Archived in China