China, the second...

Waking up early we headed to Xi'an airport ready for our flight to Hangzhou - all included within our trip and accompanied by a complementary on-board breakfast of either rise or noodles! I chose noodles but as Charlotte deemed rice an unsuitable food for breakfast I also ate hers. Finishing off the girls' meals became a near daily practice in China and I feel that weight I may have lost in Australia has creeped back on =( We arrived mid-morning in Hangzhou noted as an earthly paradise second only to the heavenly one and indeed it was a very beautiful city. Our tour-guide Andy took us across the city to the lake where a number of our group took a boat ride. Because we knew we had to return to Hangzhou to fly out we opted to walk a little round the lake and take in its beautiful views, as well as watching some of the locals dancing outdoors and performing some traditional Chinese folk music. It was a popular visiting spot for couples as legend has it a boy sailed across the lake and fell in love with a fairy! Unfortunately it wasn't my day to meet any fairies but we did have a nice coffee break at one of the cafes - even though we almost forgot to pay and sent Ben running back with the money! The lake was exceptionally beautiful and even the habitual spitting of the locals and a few dodgy singers didn't ruin the ambiance of the place.

That night the girls weren't feeling too well but Ben and I headed out with the group to experience some authentic Chinese dumplings. The place looked like a bit of a dive at first and everyone seemed a little apprehensive, not least as it was merely the front of someones house and we essentially walked through the kitchen; which probably wouldn't have passed UK health and safety regulations! When the food arrived we were pleasantly surprised however. It was delicious - the pork and leek dumplings in particular! The family were also really sweet - and at something like 40Yuan each we thought £4 a bit of a bargain for the meal. Such little bistros and family-run restaurants, Andy assured us, were common in China and we tried a few others ourselves later in our travels.

The next day was Ben's 22nd birthday and the girls had been clever enough to get him some chocolates to celebrate the night before when we had been scoffing down dumplings and a bizarre birthday card of sorts! It seems China doesn't celebrate them in quite the same way! We then headed out in the morning to the traditional water-town of Wu-Zhen. The setting for a popular Chinese soap it drew a lot of local bus-groups. Despite being essentially a show town and tourist attraction run by the government, it remains home to a number of residents who refused the offer to move and accepted the many tourists who pound the pavements everyday. We strolled around with our group, trying to avoid the irritating Chinese tour leaders with their mega-phones as Andy pointed out a few notable sights, including the brewery where we sampled some traditional Chinese wine - which is more like a spirit and something like 40%+ to boot - as well as taking a boat ride down the river and being welcomed to China by some school kids! Afterwards we jumped back on the bus and headed to Shanghai.

The built up metropolis a head of me was the first sign that we were getting into Shanghai and was followed by some familiar sights - including weirdly enough a Carrefour supermarket - and then a great view of the sport's stadium. We decided as a bus that the best way to celebrate Ben's birthday was to first take a trip on a boat down the Bund and then head into town to find a nightclub. So once we checked into the hotel we grabbed a quick bite to eat - roadside pancakes with egg, 'tenderloin' and bacon (delish!) and then grabbed a bottle of Chinese liquor for pre-drinks whilst we showered and got our glad rags on. The liquor went straight to our heads and gave us the giggles all the way to the Bund, but the views from the boat were amazing. it was a little chilly in just a shirt but well worth money as we saw Shanghai lit up in the night's sky and got plenty of photographs - Charlotte evening buying an professionally taken one of the four of us! After getting off the boat we jumped back into the mini-bus we had hired and headed out to the former French Concession. The bars, we decided were ridiculously over-priced, and so after a failed attempt to get into the nearest club early (it turned out it was being renovated!) we scoured Shangahai for a good nightclub! We took a recommendation to us (via our ever helpful guide Andy) by a local and headed to a club called Richbaby, which offered a 100Yuan 'Free Flow' for foreign passport holders! We all secured wrist bands and tucked into our Vodka orange juices/Whiskey cokes/Gin and tonics respectively and set about a game of 'I Have Never' #groan# - revealing a number of our fellow travellors to be sexual perverts haha, as well as the birthday boy's desire to 'motorboat' a particularly large-breasted Swede who was on our tour group... Apparently it was her 'party piece' and she enthusiastically allowed him to abuse her to the bemusement of a number of Chinese people! Needless to say mixing vodka, whiskey and gin was not a good idea and I remember little else of the night, except a lot of dancing and excitable Shanghai locals! A good night was had by all as the hangovers the enxt day attested...
The 'free day' we had the follwoing day was well needed and I headed out to the local Maccy's like the stereotypical western tourist I am to grab me a hangover cure! 20Yuan (about £2) for a meal and a sundae seemed reasonable enough for me and was an excelelnt accompaniement to festering in the hotel room wathching Shanghai International Channel! That evening we headed out for our last group meal #sob# and had an amazing Chinese banquet in a swanky hotel down the road from our own. Sfter stuffing ym face for the second time we headed out to see a acrobatics performance which was excellently done - including a terrifying 'Cage of Death' where five motorcyclisits risked their lives performing jumps and formation drivinig in a relatively small round metal cage! Alice was more pretrified than they were! It was a fun evening not least as each act was preceeded by a less than auspicious introduction, either in terribly constructed English to which end the meaning was totally lost on us, or by giving the acts rather mundane sounding names such as 'Playing Straw Hats' and 'The Boy with the Pot' for feats of balance and coordination that were incredible. In our semi-delirious hungover state we found this pretty amusing, and laughed a whole lot, including once again at the horified look on Alice's face whenever someone in the audience hocked up a greenie in their seat! Returning to the lobby we said our goodbyes to our fellow travellers as we were all leaving at different times and headed for bed for some much needed sleep!

We got up the next day at a reasonable hour and headed to the supermarket for some lunch supplies as we were cheking out of the hotel at 1pm and into the hostel at 2pm so thought we'd take it with us for a speedy meal. The hostel was an easy ride on the metro and was really nice. A new build the Rock and Wood International Youth Hostel was very tranquil and very clean and offered free use of the washing machine and dryer as well as a good selection of breakfast, lunch and dinner meals. That night we headed back into Shangahai to indulge Alice's desire for some western food. Not huge fan of Chinese food even t home we thought it only fair to have one meal she would actually enjoy fully and so headed to Pizza Hut before picking up our tickets from the hotel we had been staying at for our train back to Hangzhou in a few days time. The next morning we treated ourselves to an English Breakfast in the hostel and then headed out to see Shanghai, visiting People's Sqaure gardens where some young Chinese people asked us a load of questions about where we had come from and where we had visited in China so far, as well as telling me that my blue eyes were 'magic' and that English men looked like 'gentlemen' -quite the ego boost! Haha! We all went on to Shanghai museum and then Ben and I checked out the Bazzar whilst the girls got a manicure. We returned the next day to visit the Yuyan Gardens, beautiful traditional Chinese gardens situated in the heart of the city.

The next day we got up early and headed to the railay station to grab our train back to Hangzhou where we were flying out of. I almost made us late for the train waiting on my breakfast dumplings but we got there in the end and spent the next three days chilling out in Hangzhou - in more ways than one as the weather turned pretty nippy. We visited the bazaar and then lake again and the girls visited the zoo one of the days, which except for the panda exhibition was a bit of a sorry affair. We felt we needed a few days to recuperate after running around China and waited out our time discussing our plans for south east Asia. On the morning of the 8th we woke and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Kuala Lumpur - featuring in my next post!