Hangzhou

Kyle had a long weekend holiday so we decided to take the bus and go to Hangzhou.  It is a city to the south of us about 1 hour by bus.  Hangzhou has about 10 million people, it is a big port city and one of the most prosperous cities in China.  The city has a large European population and is most famous for its beautiful natural scenery.  West Lake is the cities most popular destination.  I have been wanting to go here since the first month we were here but I could never convince Kyle to go jump on a bus with me :)  Something about not being able to speak or read Chinese.  Details.  So ever since we got back I have been after him to do this, we went and visited the train station, no English so that wasn't helpful for his confidence.  I asked everyone we met about Hangzhou and if they had been there and where you go etc.  Of course everyone had been there, it is a great place to go!  That is what they told me anyway.  Finally Kyle mentioned my desires to one of the guys he works with and he naively volunteered to go with us!  What fun!  Spend your extra day off taking some Americans and their three crazy kids on a bus ride to a different city.  But really Sean was awesome and super helpful :)  One of the other Americans over here went with us, luckily (for us, maybe not for him) he has done a lot with us and is a grandpa so he knew what he was getting himself into.  So, on Friday morning we got up early and headed to the bus station.  Kids ride free and it costs about 5 bucks per adult one way.  Super cheap transportation if you can just figure out what is going on!

 Bus station in Huzhou

 She felt pretty awesome because she found her own seat :)

My seat partner.  Luckily the bus was about 1/2 empty so we were able to spread out a bit.  Kids are free but they don't get their own seat which means we had 4 seats for 7 people.

So, just a little tidbit, when the Chinese have a holiday they like to travel.  This means that all semi popular attractions will be packed. 

 This is referred to as the 'broken bridge' it is part of a local legend or fairytale depending on who you are talking to.  It is actually one of six bridges around the lake.

Welcome to sightseeing in China where in my own humble estimation the population has been grossly underestimated.

Second thing to know:  you do not wait for a sunny day to go do something, it may never happen.  Rain or shine you just have to do life.

 

 Sean and Kenz, he is trying to keep her away from the edge...

 These are evidently peach trees, everything was in bloom so it was really pretty despite the rain

 Kyle was super paranoid about K1 and K2 falling into the lake

We went for a boat ride.  Kenz and Kyle were super excited about it! :)  Actually it was really nice, the guy behind Kenz rowed us out to some islands

 Island

They used to let people on the islands but have shut them down to protect the ducks

Remember those edges with to railings?  Well shortly after I took this picture of the cute little girl Kaylie fell in the lake.  She and Kenz had been throwing in leaves and she slipped and fell in head first, Kyle leaned down to grab her but when he leaned forward his backpack came up over his head so he had to readjust to avoid falling in himself, this caused Sean to jump in to try to get her and when he jumped in he took Kenz with him.  (OMG if I hadn't been slightly traumatized watching all of this I would have had to laugh!) By the time Sean was in the water Kyle had gotten Kaylie out.  Sean helped Kenz out and then Kyle helped Sean out.  Luckily the lake was only about 4 feet deep at that point but still, now 3 people were soaking wet and Kaylie was pretty freaked out.  We took off her clothes and rang them out, then she wore Kyle's t-shirt, which was just a little too big :)  hahaha!  That in itself deserved a picture.  Unfortunately through all of this I failed to capture any photographic evidence.  Why can't our life ever be normal?

 Flower gardens

The Chinese are amazing gardeners, both vegetable and flowers.

 After 'the incident' we had to walk several miles to get around the lake and by that time the girls thought they were surely on the verge of death so we had to take them to McDonald's for nourishment, is that the right word?  Nourishment and McDonald's should probably not be in the same sentence.  Anyway, we rode a bus downtown, took about 45 minutes to get there and cost about $0.15 per person.  Because it is so cheap they get on as many people as possible.  I've never experienced anything like it.  The bus was packed when we got on, we had to shove our way on just to get in the door and they stopped about every 10 minutes to let more people on.  I have no idea how many people the had on that bus, Madi fall asleep so I just laid her up on the dashboard.  It was incredible.  Asians really do not have any concept of personal space.

 Belgium chocolate.  Unbelievably expensive, unbelievably delicious!  I'm not chocolate expert but that was the best I've ever had.  Mom, some of this is coming home to you in 4 months...

 Lots of high end shopping, no idea if it was real or knock off

They did a water show to music, it was amazing.  Kyle said it was even better than the one he saw in Vegas

 Dragon boat

 Subway.  We were trying to get back to the bus station but we couldn't get any taxi's that weren't ripping people off so we took the subway for a few blocks to get away from the more expensive district.

This is similar to the bus, only add another 100 people.  

This is the last picture I took of the day, after the subway we got a taxi and got back to the bus station.  We bought our tickets to go home and on our way out of the station 4 guys rushed up to the doorway to try to push their way through, the cops were trying to shove them back and we were in the middle.  After we got through we realized that Kenz had been holding on of the tickets and now it was gone.  Kyle had a hold of her when we were going through and basically had to drag her to get her through those guys and in the process she must have dropped the ticket.  We had 15 minutes to get on the bus, Sean went to customer service with the cop to try to figure things out.  Evidently these guys were scam artists, they would pick out people who looked like they had money or were foreigners and make a scene then take whatever they could get their hands on in the chaos.  They did it to us twice.  Anyway, the bus people figured out which seat it was and so we were supposed to go wait by the gate.  While we were waiting one of the cops brought me the ticket.  The guys who stole it must have realized that they couldn't do anything with it because the bus station knew which number it was and they were watching for it.  

After that we got on the bus and went home.  Now I can check Hangzhou off the to-do list :)