As it was foretold, today I completed a lap of the west lake of Hangzhou.
I completed a similar lap last time I was here, although this time I went a longer way, skipping the main causeway. I suggest doing that because its longer, and the electric mini buses for lazy people all use the causeway, so you get a lengthy respite from always almost being run over by a silent super speedy bus.
The lake is very famous in China and I guess globally for its beauty, a reputation I think it deserves. There are replica lakes in other parts of the world where they have recreated this lake, including in Japan and Beijing.
The lake and causeways and bridges are not new, the signs suggested the causeway had been built in 1200, and that most of the bridges were built then, and of course rebuilt many (many!) times since. This has lead to there being two sets of 10 famous scenes of the west lake, the ancient and the new 10 famous scenes.
Today I am proud to introduce, a BRAND NEW set of the 10 true famous scenes of the west lake of Hangzhou, which will replace both former lists as of today.
Scene #1 - The many layers of impressive varnish. Here we can see the power of modern chemistry at work, keeping this woodwork safe from the punishing filtered rays of polluted sunlight.
All the surrounding areas are impeccably manicured grass and flower beds, do not stand on the grass, I will show you why soon.
This is about the same spot I took a photo from last night. Sky is more polluted today, but still not bad. It was also very hot.
Scene #2 - The birthplace of modern bird flu. It is here that we can trace the roots of the 2021 bird flu plague, when overly tamed pigeons were ingested by a hungry baby.
There are many different kinds of boats you can hire or pay a guy to row you about on. The boats were fine, I was annoyed with the thousands of electric mini buses ferrying the lazy. I was walking alongside them telling the people onboard they were extremely lazy and should be embarrassed.
Scene #3 - Ideal location to silence the misbehaving child permanently. It is here where you have a very good possibility of having people believe that the drowning was an accident.
The city.
Scene #4 - Amazing world of floating concrete. Chinese concrete is best concrete, the rise of A.I. and ongoing efforts of revolutionary scientists has lead to the creation of floating concrete, seen here in public for the first time.
Here is a bridge over a bit of the lake thats running off the main lake.
Here it is again with a golden bull half submerged. I took a similar photo last time under very grey skies.
Patrimoine Mondial.
Scene #5 - The amazing floating world of rubbish and soft drinks. Without the efforts of the ancient ferrymen, diligently working to move liquid commodities and return their waste products from all parts of the lake, the lake would have been filled in completely by plastic by the end of the third epoch.
Law & Order: Tourism Police. Theres a special police force for everything. There job, to scream at people who dare to walk on the grass. Really, that seemed to be their main job!
The gardens go off of the lake for miles in many directions. There are a few parts you cant get to which seem to 'belong' to hotels, I am not sure they really do, but they have employed a guy in a fake cop suit to tell you that you are not allowed to walk up the road.
I found the boat repair shop. Yes, I wandered off the established path, mainly to escape the electric mini bus catastrophe.
Scene #6 - The tensile strength of synthetic rope. This boat is demonstrating just how far rope technology has come since 1200. At over 4 million Chinese tonnes of submerged displacement, this boat is held in place by just one blue plastic rope. Amazing.
One of the main stops for most people is this pagoda. Many mini buses go here. I walked here obviously since I walked the whole way, but I did not pay to climb the pagoda.
Scene #7 - The dichotomy of grass and tree. Due to the ongoing efforts of the brave tourism police, we are treated to the ridiculousness of the perfect grass.
Have a bit more pagoda.
Scene #8 - Regrets, I have none. Here we have the last opportunity to push her should you only now realise that the level of annoyingness being exhibited by your future wife right now is what you are about to sign up to forever.
Red vs White, hmm, I choose red. There were at least 10 brides to be fighting for the good spots around here.
In the grounds of the pagoda park, there is a food court, with a dicos and a mcdonalds, this is the view from the outdoor seating at mcdonalds.
I am on the far side of the lake by now, about to avoid the causeway and carry on ever further away from the city.
This is the main causeway. I waited for 28 minutes to get a photo without an electric mini bus spoiling the view.
Scene #9 - The effectiveness of the turtle net. Here we can see a wonderful new style of turtle net made from carbon nano tubes. Under the water it is completely invisible, this has increased the yield of turtle meat by 11,000kg per week in the west lake catchment area.
The far side of the lake has many many gardens to wander, and not many people. There was a school sports day happening on a big grassed area, I presume they bribed the tourist police to be allowed on the grass.
I managed to get all 3 in one shot, pagoda, goldfish, waterlilies. The fish are an excellent accompaniment to turtle. Here in China the turtle shell is used as food, when you buy herbal jelly, those cubes of sweet stuff they put in bubble tea, thats turtle shell!
Beyond the western edge of the west lake there is still more lake to be seen.
I was now back to where the causeway joined back onto the non causeway. In the last week of my life I have had cause to say the word causeway more times than the rest of my life up until that point.
The view was still great, so many hills to explore if you had time and didnt have an annoying cough.
Scene #10 - The neoness of being. Here we have an amazing neon cornucopia of flowers and sprayed on greenery to form a nondescript shape of awesomeness representing the future hopes and dreams of everyone.
This is actually the grounds and ruins of a Qing dynasty palace. There ruins are covered by large perspex view boxes. The trees were nice.
Another view of Hangzhou as I head back into town.
This is the shorter of the two causeways, I did walk along this one, otherwise you walk along a busy road with noisy traffic. You can see the minibuses approaching. If I were to do a scene #11 it would be about the amazing speed attained by small silent electric buses.
My current hotel does not include breakfast. Therefore a healthy lunch is required to fight off scurvy. Hangzhou delivered in spades. This was very delicious.
And for my last photo, KFC advertising. Here in China using KKK to advertise KFC is no problem.