West Lake in Hangzhou

My new Chinese friend Vanna suggested I spend the final 24 hours of my trip at West Lake in Hangzhou.  So I left my hotel, got on a bus and went to Hangzhou.  Vanna made it seem so easy and wrote some notes for me to show cab drivers.  It was still tough figuring out the area but I had some help and found a hotel.  I think I spoiled myself.  It felt so luxurious to have a shower that didn't go all over the bathroom.

West Lake is very beautiful.  It's a man made lake that is surrounded by mountains on one side and the city on the other side.

I found a place to hike up in the mountains.  I had coffee at the quietest coffee shop. Then hiked a bit more and saw the Baochu Pagoda.

Then I hiked even more and came across this temple that was so beautiful.  The man who sold me the ticket always seemed to appear after I was finished seeing one part and he would quietly point his finger to the next part. It seemed to be a working temple so I wasn't sure where I could go and where I couldn't. 

I miss hiking in Los Angeles.  This reminded me a lot of the canyons I used to hike in only nicer.  There were so many stairs and lots of paths to explore.  I could have spent a day just walking around up there.

For dinner I decided to save money and find vendors selling the local street foods. I found a few and got a variety of foods.  AND saw the biggest cucumbers (It's hard to tell but they're probably 4 to 5 feet long!):

I took the food to the lake and accidentally sat right in front of the fountain show. The fountain show is in the lake so you would think it would be spectacular.  It wasn't.  Especially since I live in Xi'an which has the biggest fountain in Asia.  This lake show didn't change colors and only lasted 15 minutes.  It was still nice to enjoy my dinner while watching the show.

It was a quick trip but a nice way to end my vacation.  I'll definitely be going back to Hangzhou to see the rest of the city.

I took a bullet train back to Shanghai.  It only took 50 minutes and was a very new and clean train.  It cost 82RMB or $12USD.

I took the subway to Pudong Airport and it took 2 hours!  I almost missed my flight.   Luckily I made it just in time and had a turbulent flight back to Xi'an.  I've never experienced more turbulence in all my years of flying than I  have in China.  We made it safely to the ground and it was back to teaching the next day.