Despite the overwhelming number of tourists, walking around West Lake was a very enjoyable experience. The view from the shore was very nice and scenic, and really made you appreciate the beauty of the area:
The grass along the path was covered with this strange web-like film, which I found unusual. I assumed it was to keep the grass safe in the mercurial weather this time of year, but I wasn't certain for sure.
The only vexing part of my walk around West Lake - the large number of tourists excluded - was the tourist buses that drove along the roads, carting tourists to different spots around the lake, and would constantly play the chorus from The Butterfly Lovers' Concerto (梁祝小提琴協奏曲), which is an absolutely wonderful piece of music, but it starts to grate on you after you are forced to hear one short chorus of it several thousand times over the course of a few hours.
Despite the annoying music, I continued to take in the beautiful scenery:
I was walking past what looked like a small shrine when I overheard some Chinese taking about 'fighting a tiger' (打虎), and 'drinking three bowls and not being able to cross a ridge' (三碗不过岗). For most foreigners who speak Chinese, these phrases would have just been some meaningless gibberish, but for me, those terms have everything to do with my interests in Chinese culture. I quickly stopped to take a closer look at this shrine, only to find that I'd stumbled on the grave of the semi-fictional hero whose story I am focusing my master's thesis on: Wu Song (武松). I thanked my lucky star the Chinese are so loud when they speak, otherwise I would have likely missed out on this amazing discovery.
Much more obvious than Wu Song's Tomb was the Zhejiang Provincial History Museum (浙江省博物馆), which much to my amazement was absolutely free to enter. Sadly, large sections of the museum were closed for renovations, but at least I didn't have to waste any money on a ticket:
By the time I was on the far side of the lake, I noticed that there were less temples and traditional Chinese buildings, and a whole lot more coffee shops:
The further I continued along the path, the scenery became much more commercialized and modern-Chinese and much less 'traditional' and touristy-Chinese in look and feel:
Wanting to make sure I didn't miss my train back to Suzhou, I decided to bid West Lake a fond farewell and begin my search for a taxi back to the train station.
My search for a taxi turned out to be far harder than I'd anticipated, as it was the middle of the day, and I was competing with thousands of other Chinese tourists who also wanted a taxi. It was then that I noticed some men driving pedicabs, or sanlunche (三轮车), simply standing around doing nothing. It turned out that these men were perfectly willing to take you anywhere in Hangzhou for a set price, but most Chinese were too busy fighting over taxis to even give them a second glance. I, on the other hand, was perfectly happy to squeeze into the back of one of these little vehicles to get back to Hangzhou Railway Station (城站). The ride to the train station was entertaining experience by itself, as the little pedicab made liberal use of bike lanes, traffic lanes, and side walks in order to get me to the train station as fast as possible.
In a few minutes, I was at the train station waiting to head back to Suzhou after a fun and exciting day at Hangzhou.
After getting back to Suzhou, I was so pleased with how well my day trip to Hangzhou was that I decided to conquer another city later that week. What city was it, you ask? You'll just have to wait until my next blog post to find out! Until next time!
