Hangzhou: Last Night

It's my last day in Hangzhou, and when I woke up this morning, I realized I had too much to do still. Just to name part of the list, I still had yet to see:

Linyin Temple (靈隱寺) & Feilaifeng (飛來峰)
Northern Peak (北高峰)
Southern Peak (南高峰)
Downtown Hangzhou, Xintiandi (新天地)
Song Cheng City (宋成 - where they have show performances)
Longjing Cun (龍井村 - where they collect Longjing tea leaves)
Silk Museum
Tiger Bubbling Spring (虎跑泉)
Liuhe Pagoda (六和塔)
Hangzhou Botanical Gardens
Hangzhou Wetland Preserves
Yue Miao (嶽廟)
The islands in the middle of Xihu
Shan Wai Shan Restaurant (山外山)
Tian Wai Tian Restauarant (天外天)
Yuquan (玉泉)
The Foreign Student Dining Hall at Zhejiang University

Obviously, I couldn't do them all, but I decided to try to cover as much as I could. I first took the bus to Yuquan. After wandering around the outskirts of the Botanical Garden and ShanWaiShan, I decided to just go to Zhejiang University again and try their Foreign Student Dining Hall. The menu is impressively hung on the wall:

The food was quite good as well:



A trail surrounded with bamboo near Zhejiang University:



Next, I walked to the nearby egg-like building, and found that this was actually 黃龍體育中心 (Huanglong Athletics Center), where someone recommended to visit at night, since they serve lots of tasty foods then:



I then took a taxi thru much of Hangzhou city itself:



Like any other city, it has traffic, but at least they plant flowers in the middle of their dividers and you can see the sky. However, like any other city in China, it is developing at a rapid pace. Here is a tower that is under construction:



I ended up heading back to Hefang St. There was an exhibit showing all the Emperors of China for 5 RMB I went in to take a look. One obvious detail that stands out is the obvious changes in clothing from emperor to emperor across different dynasties.

Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BC) and other early dynasties:



Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) or thereabouts:



The Qing Dynasty (1644-1912 AD), with the Manchus as Emperors in noticeably different dress:



After that, I rushed back to the hostel, then took a bus up to Lingyin Temple. I of course had no time to actually visit the temple as it was aleady 5pm; however, I ran up nearby Northern Peak:



My climb upwards took about half an hour. A pavillion near the top:



And I arrived just as the final rays of light were about to stop shining. A shot of Xihu from Northern Peak:



Unfortunately cloud cover was too heavy. After running back down Northern Peak in near darkness, I took a car to Song Cheng, where I had tickets to see Romance of the Song Dynasty (宋城千古情) at 6:50pm:






The show was quite spectacular, though rather short (only about an hour), and immediately after it was over and the auditorium was emptied out, the audience for the next show would be welcomed in - it was like a well oiled high performance machine.

Song Cheng itself was quite interesting, if not somewhat gimmicky, with everyone working there dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, and working out of buildings designed in traditional Chinese architecture:



I enjoyed that aspect of it though, as I always felt it would be nicer if they retained more traditional aspects of Chinese culture in everyday life. I stopped by a restaurant where they served "Crossing the Bridge Noodles" (过桥米线), which I had yet to try. You could get it with a variety of meats in the noodle soup, including dog meat. I was going to try dog meat as well, but they were out, and I had to settle for lamb:



The meal was quite good, the broth was flavorful and spicy, and the noodles were especially QQ. I chatted with the restaurant owner and his family, as his children were tasked with helping out with the cooking, generating sales, servicing, etc.

Besides good food, Song Cheng had a number of other drawing points. One is this obstacle course that seems to actually be quite challenging. This is a section of it:



I ran across a section of it with bobbing floats chained together, and couldn't help but get wet each time. In addition, they had very interesting playground equipment, such as this human-sized exercise wheel, something we usually see only for gerbils:


You can imagine how much fun this was to run on.

After exiting out of Song Cheng, I realized I had no ride to go back, as pretty much everyone was part of some tour group and they were going back on the tour buses. The public buses have long since stopped running (as this was Hangzhou), and so I ended up having to get a black car taxi instead.

After I finally got back, it was about 11:30pm. However, there was still one important thing left to do: run around Xihu. And so I started, looking forward to the 13-15km journey with great pleasure. The night was cool, and the paths were quiet, devoid of people. I neglected to bring my camera since it was still too large and clumsy an object to carry in a pocket for so many miles. It was a move I would come to regret.

After having routed from the southern side of the lake, all the way around the East, and now across most of the North, I was just about to enter Sudi (蘇堤) when I saw strange lights in the distance. It was an unusual white glow, unlike anything I had seen before around Xihu. As I ran closer, I realized that they were lights, many many lights, shooting upwards, lighting up the sky. It was a play rehearsal, probably for Zhang Yimou's (張藝謀) Yinxiang Xihu (印象西湖), a theatrical performance on Xihu itself.

I stopped to watch - the scene was breathtaking because it was so surprising. It was close to 1am, and yet there were a few actors out on the lake, standing on boats and various platforms. A director's voice thru the megaphone could be heard from the side of the woods. The lights were adjusted to different colors, from white to purple, to blue, to green. There apparently were platforms underneath the water too, making it look like the actors could walk on water. Large, pillar-like structures were also underneath, and they would rise from the lake, as if part of some Leviathan beast.

As I observed, more people came by to gather around, wondering what was going on as well. Together, we watched the reenactment of some scene in a Chinese folk story. The spotlight was on an elegant young girl and her umbrella, watching an approaching boatman row towards her across the still lake. The lights changed, and now she was enveloped in a mysterious green shade.

While I watched, I began thinking to my time here in Hangzhou. I truly will miss this place. I feel this is one place I could really live in and call home. So far nowhere else in China has been able to provide me the same cultural setting, laid-back attitude, beautiful scenery, and clean environment as Hangzhou. It's not just the lifestyle here either. The people are actually normal here. In lines, they don't push and shove their way thru like everywhere else. After security screenings, they don't scramble to gather their belongings as if somebody is about to steal them. And the food is delicious. I can seriously look forward everyday to getting up and walk/run/bike/row my way around, eat great food, then spend the rest of the day reading a book, learning more Chinese, philosophizing, composing music, or writing poems.

And so I ran back across Sudi, back to the hostel, completing my loop. I grabbed my camera and took a taxi back to the same location, but of course now everything was dead silent. Disappointed, headed back with only a head full of memories.