The modern malls of Hangzhou
As you shall soon see, it is raining, it is really raining a lot, it is raining so much that I cant even walk around in the street because its all just deep puddles.
Despite my ongoing attempts to completely expel both lungs through coughing fits, I had plans today. I planned to climb some of those hills over the back of the lake. I now wont get to do that. I still get to cough a lot, but I dont get to cough n' climb, just cough n' whine.
Since tomorrow I am going to Shanghai, I now wont ever get to see if you can climb along those hills, I believe you can, I guess I will have to come back again another time, get a cold again, another cold that has now lasted 9 days, hooray.
Can I put a sick leave form in for the days I was sick on my holiday? I used to know someone who did that, he got fired for doing it, true story.
Back to the rain rant, a few times I thought it would stop, only to find it was raining harder, right now out my window I can see a whiter bit of grey sky, but I wont be fooled, its going to rain for the rest of time.
Yes, its raining. I sat and drank two expensive coffees at the expensive cafe thinking it would stop. It didnt.
Instead I scrolled the map and found the furthest mall on the subway line, because what else can I do in the rain? As it turns out, this is the mall I went to last time I was here, only that time I had to go on a long dark bus trip through the remote ghost town suburbs which were all under contruction back then.
There is an ice skating rink, and small Chinese babies are very good at ice skating, I saw a quintuple lutz to double axel.
As you can see, this area is no longer a ghost town, it is the new modern city centre.
The mall has a very nice roof garden area to get wet in while taking photos of the view. The cleaners who rake leaves all day were standing under shelter making fun of me for getting wet.
Once I had walked around indoors enough, I descended back to the subway and found a food stand selling 5 mystery balls of mystery meat for $2. They were quite nice, each one had a different mysterious filling of grey boiled flesh. Fittingly grey and moist.
The hills around the West Lake of Hangzhou at dusk
The rain stopped at 4pm. I had my face pressed against the window in anticipation, as soon as I saw it had stopped I was out the door. My destination - the small hill along the edge of the lake with the brick pagoda on top. My verdict on this area - excellent.
I had actually been there on my last trip to Hangzhou, but on that occasion i walked up from a different side and straight back down again, no idea why, because it is an excellent walk all the way along the top of the hill and down the far side into a completely different area of Hangzhou.
There were not too many other people up here, although I could see that everyone who was visiting the lake was waiting for the rain to stop so they could make their mad dash around it in the mini buses to view my 10 new amazing lake sites, I can already tell my list is a big hit.
I could have easily done a list of 10 new things to see on the hill as well, because in the post rain light there was excellent fog and mist, strange twilight sunsets over the city, and a one in one hundred year appearance of the dual hounds of hades! (dogs that guard the gateway to hell).
I wanted to get up there to where that tower is, I assumed I would be able to approach the hill from the pointy bit nearest the city. I was wrong, I made 3 attempts that resulted in retreats.
Instead I found myself walking back along the west lake, lots of people were setting off on their lap now that the rain had stopped.
I found my path, here we have a gate, fog, steps, bundles of electrical wires.
Yes, the photo everyone takes, enjoy the modern recreation of the ancient pagoda.
The lesser causeway in the lake.
There are numerous slippery rock paths to choose from, I tried them all and never slippd over once.
I was really enjoying the late afternoon view of the rain clouds leaving the city.
Have a bit more lake, and fog leaving the forest.
Here we have the other side of Hangzhou, the non lake side, rarely seen!
I have not taken one of these for a few days. I was so happy (cant you tell?) that the rain had left and I could run up a hill today. I originally intended to run up lots more hills a lot further away, but any hill will do.
There are lots of things to do here on the hill. There were some Chinese kids camping here, you can see their rolled up space blanket things on the bottom of this ancient shrine. I told them a ghost story about a weird white guy who collects Chinese childrens teeth, they descended immediately.
I decided to keep heading in this direction, through the fog, down the far side of the hill.
There was a chance for one last view of the sun hitting parts of the tourist side of Hangzhou.
I was surprised at what I found on the far side of the hill, here we have a tea plantation, thats it, no more just this little bit in this hidden valley.
Thats when I stumbled into these dogs guarding the gates of hell! Quite surreal.
Then in an amazing twilight I descended through the sacred bamboo forest, with kung fu warriors flying over head.
I exited the hill area by skirting around a pay to enter temple garden, without paying.
This part of Hangzhou is the government building area, it now has a brand new (opened last month) subway line. Here we have the olympic stadium. Can you remember the Hangzhou olympics? So many wonderful memories, China won every single medal and they also came 4th in every event so invented a new kind of medal made of silk.
This is the local power companies building.
And from what I could work out, this is the police headquarters. It is a new building.
I returned to the area near my hotel for dinner, descended underground and found a place claiming to sell Hangzhou specialty noodles. OK then. It was noodles, not sure what was special, they were nice and spicy, but just noodles. Hangzhou specialty - plain noodles.