The White Snake Lady

Boarded a jet plane from Xian to Hangzhou today. I like.

Hangzhou has 6.16 million people and yet before preparing for this trip, I had never heard of it. Pretty amazing that a city with more people than just about every US city (only NYC has more... I think) can fly under my "Western radar". It is considered by many to be a very romantic city and is a common place for Chinese honeymoons. My guide (Nelson) said his parents had their honeymoon there and we saw many folks (likely from Shanghai... ~2 hours away) getting their wedding photos done. For all the people who cautioned me not to come back married, do not worry, it is a romantic city, but I remain single :-).

Hangzhou is noted for the West Lake which is on the west side of the city. It is quite beautiful and very peaceful. We took a boat cruise around it and saw many causeways and spots for lovers (Nelson kept repeating "there is a good spot for lovers... there is another good spot for lovers"). Evidently some of the homeless people have a scam where they occupy the best spots and wait for some young couple and then ask them to pay for him/her to move. They come back every 20-30 minutes to charge "rent". While I do not care for scams in general... this one is kind of funny.

There is also some great stories and myths in the region. I will not recount them here, but if you have a chance check out the one about the "White Snake Lady". As with all myths it is a bit unusual but it is even more odd to me that (at least in Western culture), snakes are generally signs of evil and associated with men (for my feminist friends, this is not me admitting that men are evil!). In this case the snake is both good and female.

We also visited the memorial and tomb of famed General Yue Fei (1103-42). Think the Chinese version of William "Braveheart" Wallace but even more betrayed.

Hangzhou is also noted for its tea and we visited the Dragon Well Tea Village. I learned all about different kinds of tea and what makes the region's tea so special (it is in the soil, harvest, and preparation). We also got to try some of the tea. As Napa is for wines (and wine tasting) this region is for tea (and tea tasting) but on a less dramatic scale.

Tomorrow is a bit up in the air at the moment. Either way I will visit Suzhou but in world A) I continue with my tour and spend the night in Wuxi (pronounced more like wushi) and in world B) I leave my tour in Suzhou, head to Shanghai, and fly to Singapore. Earlier today it was looking like world B, but now it looks like world A. Rough life!