A funny thing happened on the way to the train station..

[I know it's been a while since I've posted anything about my travels back in January and February. You probably thought I forgot about it. Rest assured, I didn't. I've just been busy. Now back to posts on my winter break travels.]

In the last post about my trip, Leslie & I were in Hangzhou. Our plan was to travel from Hangzhou to Shanghai via the high-speed bullet train that connects the two cities, however we were only semi-successful in completing this goal. However, before we get to that, I have a funny little story about our cab ride from our hostel in Hangzhou to the Hangzhou train station.

As I mentioned, Leslie and I took a cab from the area our hostel was in to the train station. Since our hostel was located off a pedestrian street, we had to first walk out to a larger intersection with cars on it to flag our cab. After a short while, we were able to hail a cab, get in and let the cab driver know that we wanted to go to the train station. The driver, a woman, nods her head and says okay and takes off in the direction of the train station.

After driving a minute or two, we stop at a red light and the driver begins speaking to me. At first, I thought she was perhaps speaking to someone on the phone via a bluetooth or a hands-free device (that's what New York cab drivers are always doing), however after a split second I realize she's talking to me.

She asks me if I would mind and if we weren't pressed for time (we weren't), if she could stop the cab at the convenience store across the intersection so she could run in and use the restroom. She went on explain that at the train station, there's no place for her to pull over and run to the restroom. Since Leslie and I were in no rush, and I understood her urgency, I said it was fine (she also promised to stop the meter so we wouldn't be charged for her bathroom break).

During this entire interaction, the cab driver was incredibly polite and gracious. It just further shows how nice the people of Hangzhou were to use. However, since this entire conversation was in Mandarin, I can only imagine what Leslie first thought when the driver pulled over & ran out of the cab towards the restroom at the convenience store. After I explained it to her though, we had a good laugh.

It's definitely a good anecdote of our trip though.

Now back to the trains. Earlier, I mentioned that Leslie and I wanted to take the high-speed bullet train (the G train0 that allows you to travel a distance of roughly 190 km (118 miles) in a mere 45 minutes. However, since the train ticket agents we purchased the tickets from in Beijing weren't the most helpful nor clued-in of train agents, we ended up on the second-fastest train (the D train) that takes you the same distance in 1 1/2 hours, which is still impressively quick if you think about it.

D Train

Interior of the D train

Regardless, Leslie and I got to Shanghai just fine, despite a mess up about which Shanghai train station we were going to. (The previously mentioned clueless train ticket agents had said we were going to the Shanghai South Train station, but we ended up at the Shanghai Hongqiao Airport train station. Good thing Shanghai's metro system is very thorough.)

For those of you fretting about our missed opportunity, don't worry. Leslie & I made up for it by take the Maglev train, a high-speed electro-magnetic train that goes from Shanghai out to Pudong Airport, when we were leaving Shanghai. Although on our trip to the airport the train speed only climbed up to a "measly" 289 mph (465 km/hr), during it's fastest runs (which are normally in the afternoon), it can go up to 315 mph (507 km/hr).

Maglev Train

Quilted pajamas, the newest fashion craze?

As we were making our way to our hostel in Hangzhou for the first time after just arriving, Leslie and I noticed an older woman walking by dressed in a matching quilted pajama set. We thought it was a bit odd to go out dressed like that, but we figured she was probably just running a short errand and she was the only one dressed like that. After all, who are we to judge another person's fashion sense? (Not to mention, I've been guilty of running to the store in sweats in the past as well.)

However, before the day even ended, we realized this 'trend' was not limited to just one person. It was actually pretty common to see people walk around (men, women, old, young and children alike), do their shopping and errands in these quilted pajama sets. It seemed to be quite the trend actually.

I think in total, by the time we left Hangzhou, we counted somewhere between 30 to 40 different people wearing these odd quilted pajama sets. Forty may not sound like a lot, until you realize we were really only in Hangzhou for two days.

Although, I will concede one thing. Despite being a bit odd to where outside of the house, those pajama sets did look warm.  Here are some pictures so you can judge for yourself.

Old Hangzhou

Near our fantastic hostel in Hangzhou, was an older portion of the city where many older locals still resided. As we meandered through the area, we actually found a small food market area where all the locals go daily to shop for fresh vegetables, fruit and other edible items for that's day meals.

Whenever I travel, I love to browse around the local food markets. Markets always are the best place to observe the local life, so I was happy that we found one by accident in Hangzhou.

The market that we ran into in Hangzhou was half indoors and half outdoors. At this market, you could find anything you might need to make a meal--vegetables, fruit, meat, dried goods, spices, fish and live poultry.

Yes, I said live poultry. Chinese people like to get their food as fresh as possible, meaning it's best if you actually met the chicken you're going to eat while it's still alive. Much of the fish being sold as well at the market was also still swimming.

For me, coming from my Chinese background seeing all the live poultry and fish didn't really bother me. After all, this is basically the way it's been done for years in China and in the US, my parents still prefer to buy live fish as opposed to frozen fish to cook.

But for Leslie, I think she might have been a bit startled to see just how much freshness really mattered to Chinese home cooks. She was also quite interested to see the vendors selling all the different soy products from tofu to bean curd sheets to dried tofu.What can I say? Tofu is really what cheese is like to the West. While cheese in the West comes in many shapes in sizes, in China, the tofu possibilities are seemingly endless.

Pictures from the older part of Hangzhou shall now commence forth, including one of (the woman we dubbed as) the tofu lady.

 

Tofu lady

More pictures on Angela Photo Musings.

Hangzhou, Re-visited

Stop number two on my winter break travels (stop number three for Leslie) was Hangzhou.

If you're unfamiliar with Hangzhou, it's a city roughly 190 km (about 118 miles) southwest of Shanghai. For many years, Hangzhou's famed West Lake (西湖) made it a popular vacationing spot. Just this year, the New York Times placed Hangzhou in the 33rd spot on their list of "The 41 Places to Go in 2011." It's also now the home to Baidu, China's answer to Google and many of China's other high-tech firms.

As the title of this post suggests, this was my second time to Hangzhou. The first time I was there was with my parents just this past September before my semester started here in Beijing. However, that first time was with a tour so I didn't really get any chance at all to explore on my own, so I was happy to return and get a chance to walk around on my own.

The first we noticed when we landed in Hangzhou (we flew down from Qingdao), was that there was snow on the ground!

Okay, so I realize that doesn't sound so shocking to many of you. But you have to understand that at this point, Beijing & most of the northern China hadn't seen any rain/precipitation since October, much less snow. So when we got to Hangzhou, which was noticeably warmer than Beijing and Qingdao (since it's farther south), we were a surprised to see snow on the ground, even though it wasn't very much.

After we got out of the airport and into the city, Leslie & I hailed a cab to go to our hostel. But since our hostel was in a pedestrian-only area, our taxi driver only drop us off at the gate of the pedestrian-only area.

Since we had directions from the hostel, Leslie & I were not too worried about not being able to find it, however before we could even figure out our bearings, a older man stopped to talk to us. At first, I thought he might be selling something, but after a split second, I realized he was giving directions to our hostel. After speaking to him for a moment though, he offered to show us where it was and no, he was not looking for a tip. He really was just being incredibly kind. Leslie & I were quite shocked by his hospitality.

As it turns out though, hospitality in Hangzhou was not just limited to this one person. Another time, Leslie & I had just pulled out our map to check where we were and another elderly man stopped and told us where we were before we even had a chance to glance at the map. And even one other time, we were walking down a pedestrian street near our hostel and an older woman stopped her conversation with another man just to talk to us & have me explain to Leslie a bit about Hangzhou's history. I have to say, the hospitality of the people in Hangzhou was quite frankly amazing and it made a really big impression on me. I already had a high opinion of Hangzhou to begin with, but the people's attitude to tourists made it even higher.

The next day, Leslie & I set out to explore the star of Hangzhou: West Lake. Since we got to Hangzhou with enough time to explore a bit the day before before sunset, we already had walked a bit around lake closest to our hostel, so in the morning we headed up in a vaguely sketchy looking van-bus up to the northern part to explore the other sections.

As we walked around the lake, I was really struck by how beautiful the lake really is. The first time, I think I was a bit jaded by all the previous lakes & Chinese gardens we had seen before Hangzhou so West Lake didn't seem that special to me at the time. However, cut to the a few months later after being in Beijing for a while, and the West Lake seemed magnificent in comparison to Beijing (no offense to Beijing).

Probably the most striking thing about the lake was that even though it was the dead of winter and many trees were missing there leaves, there was still a lot of greenery around. In comparison to Qingdao and Beijing, which both looked very grey and almost dead (in terms of plant-life), Hangzhou seemed incredibly green & lush, despite having snow on the ground. The contrast of the snow, the greenery, the bare branches and the occasional already-blooming flower was incredibly beautiful.

Okay, that's enough writing for now. I'll continue writing about Hangzhou in another post. I know all of you just really want to see the pictures so, without further adieu...

 

Lots more pictures on Angela Photo Musings.

And I'm off!

Being the regular blog readers I know you all are, I'm sure you all realize I'm finally now on my winter break. Better late than never, I say.

Two days after my finals, my friend Leslie came to town. This past week, we've been fitting the bitter Beijing cold and wind and visiting Beijing's major sights. And when I say bitter cold...I really do mean bitter cold.

Tomorrow, we're leaving to travel for a total of ten days to Qingdao, Hangzhou and Shanghai. On the 30th, we'll head to Hong Kong, where we'll be spending the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival. I'm excited (as always) to return to Hong Kong to see family and friends again.

Not to mention that Hong Kong is a food lover's paradise and I love food. Plus, Hong Kong's much warmer than Beijing right now.

Since I'll be on the traveling through the 30th of this month, there will most likely be a decrease in blog posts until I reach Hong Kong, at least. I do hope to get some posts up while I'm on the road, but in case I don't, I hope that everyone has a good rest of January!

And for those of you reading in Hong Kong, I hope to see you soon!

If that doesn't look cold to you, you're crazy.
Summer Palace, Beijing

PS. For those of you going through Living-in-Cultural-Limbo-blog withdrawal (which I know is all of you), at least you know when I return, you'll have lots of pictures and things to look forward to. :)

Hangzhou

Described by Marco Polo* in his The Travels of Marco Polo as  paradise and the finest city in the world, Hangzhou has long rich history. From 1138-1279 it served as the capital of the Southern Song dynasty. Even after the conqueroring Mongols moved the capital to Beijing, Hangzhou remained and still is a thriving commercial center. Today, Hangzhou is known as the home of West Lake (Xi Hu), which is largely considered to be one of the scenic wonders of China. It is also well-known for it's Dragon Well tea (Longjing tea).

*Note: The accuracy of Macro Polo's The Travels of Marco Polo is often contested. It's unclear whether Marco Polo ever really visited China, or if he was just embellishing stories he had heard from his father, uncle and other traveling merchants.

 Pavilion overlooking a portion of Xi Hu

 Xi Hu

Tea fields of Longjing Tea

 Longjing Tea

More photos at Angela Photo Musings: http://angelaphotomusings.blogspot.com