Straight after work on Saturday it was home, throw some clothes in the pack, then taxi to the train station. That's where you sit in the corner and get stared at, or mother's drag their kids over to practice both sentences they know in english. It doesn't worry me much at all now because I've got enough mandarin going to ask them their names and tell them to stop talikng so fast so I can work out what they're saying. Sorta
The train gets in to Beijing at 4:30 AM and then it's a trip out to the airport, buy a ticket to Hangzhou and another city in China to see. On CCTV9, our English speaking, State owned, tv station, Hangzhou is advertised as the "Most Beautiful City in China". Marco Polo said this a couple of years back and it seems like they don't want to let go. To be fair, it's a lot cleaner than Shuozhou, but so are most kennels.
In the last few years they have done a lot of work on and around West Lake in the middle of the city. Once you get across the main road circling the lake you're immediately in this green zone dodging fans and floopy swords as the hordes do their fan and sword dances or tia chi, walk the dog - some are carried - or people peddling hired push bikes aruond the lake.
One thing this country has down in spades is their transpport system. A bus, train or plane is really easy to get to and on to. But in Hangzhou they take it one step further and all around town are depots hiring city push bikes that can be hired for the day and dropped off at any one of the places that hire them out, and there are plenty of them. Depots AND bikes. And every one of them has a bell. They all ride like they drive - on the horn, so the bells get a work out too. A lot of the paths in closer to the lake are closed to all but foot traffic though so there is a way to get away from it.
And that is where the title comes in.
Most of the 'tourists' are Chinese. There are foreigners around but even in the hostel the majority were domestic tourists, which makes really good mandarin practice because they want to all about whereever you're from. I was prepared this time and had some photos from home that I could put on a computer for them and they saved everyone I showed them and asked a dozen questions about each one.
Still wondering about the title?
OK. Picture this. I'm walking around this nice lake taking in the sites and all I can hear is the constant noise. This is an asian country - say no more. So I put my music on and had West Lake with U2 doing the theme music. Every now and then I sit down, and if there is one thing the Chinese like more than getting their photo taken it's getting their photo taken with a Laowai. If I'd sit down long enough there'd be someone siting beside me and someone else pointing a camera at me. At one point I had a little girl of about 6-8 yrs old watching me have a drink. Next thing I know she's hopped up beside me and her mother has asked in broken chinglish if she can take a photo. This is where I had one earpiece pulled out and her mum got a great photo of us sitting there with an earpiece each and her giggling away to the music. I had a job to get the earpiece back in the end.
Anyway I did the walk around as much of the lake as I could handle, caught a boat/ferry/temple out to see what the small islands were like then the wind came up. The deepest point of the lake is only around 1.5m deep and fairly open so in no time there were wind surfers on the lake. I didn't see any kites but apparently they get out everynow and then. Could be worth a trip back.
Next morning I got the lowdown on the bus system, stuffed it all up, did three laps of the city and went out the west bus station. All for 6 RMB. Roughly one AU dollar. Straight up to the window and bought a ticket to ride the next bus to Huangshan.
Tomorrow I going mountain climbing.
