Amazing Race in Hangzhou

West Lake in Hangzhou

Distance from Wuxi to Hangzhou is not near, it takes close to 2 hours travel on G train (高铁, gao tie). I took the earliest G train available, reaching Hangzhou just before 11am, and the last G train from Hangzhou to Wuxi station was at 5.05, reaching Wuxi in 2 hours time. This gave me the mere 5 hours in Hangzhou.

Given my short stint in Hangzhou, of course this does not do any justice to the most iconic attraction in Hangzhou, the West Lake (Xi Hu). Marco Polo apparently described Hangzhou as "The City of Heaven". I have no hope of touring the whole lake, but this is more of an opportunity to meet up with a friend who lives in China at the moment, about 2 stations away from Hangzhou. She took the same train as me, so we met up in the train itself.

I initially had grand plans of cycling around Xi Hu but I ended up taking the metro. There is a metro station next to Hangzhou Railway Station of the same name, and the nearest metro station to Xi Hu is Longxiang Qiao (龙翔桥) on Line 1, about 5-10 minutes walk.

As we reached Hangzhou closed to 11am, we decided to have an early lunch, before attempt to circle the lake. Friend brought me to Wai Po Jia (The Grandma's). Wai Po Jia is a chain restaurant but serve pretty good food at a reasonable price. You could opt to wait at the restaurant after taking a ticket, or walk around till you get a text on your mobile. They offered free popcorn for those waiting for a table at the restaurant. I was lucky as friend has a local mobile number, so we walked around a little to kill time. Haha, 4 dishes between the two of us, and half of it were dessert :P Thanks to my friend who shouted lunch.

Clockwise from top left: Veges, chicken dish, mochi and green tea biscuit
I think the desserts were the better dishes :P

Exercise after meal was attempting to walk around Xi Hu. Due to our limited time, we were only able to cover places where most people do, therefore it was fairly crowded. :(
As a marker, we walked from where Hyatt Regency to Shangri-la.

The only famous sightseeing spot we passed on our slow walk was Lingering Snow on Broken Bridge (断桥残雪, Duàn Qiáo Cán Xuě). Very dramatic name eh.

The bridge was so name based on a famous folklore love story, between a beautiful girl who was actually a white snake and a man named Xu Xian. They met on the bridge and fell in love with each other. The bridge was also the scene where they made up after a long series of ups and downs.

We had to back track not long thereafter as I had a train to catch. Friend's train was later.

It's green, it's red

A glimpse of daily life at this famous lake

Friend suggested that we leave Xi Hu at 4.30pm, and that would be sufficient time to catch my 5.05 pm train back to Wuxi. We eventually walked back to Longxiang Qiao metro station before 4.30pm as I was a little worry not being on time. Trains in China may not be as to the dot as trains in Japan but they are puntual.

As fate had its way, we had to queue to get our metro tickets, and missed the metro just as it pulled away. The next one was in 8 minutes time. The metro journey itself took about 10 minutes. By that time, it was about 4.45 pm and I had to dash out and ran like no tomorrow to Hangzhou train station. The ticket check closed 5 minutes before train departure and I still had to go through the security check. It was hard enough to run with my little legs and poor stamina, I still had to stop and read the signboard to ensure I wasn't running to the wrong directions. Friend was cool, she ran with me and directed me where to turn, though of course I ran harder.

I almost went to the wrong gate, as the signboard stated gate and platform number, and I misread it as it was only my second time taking long distance train in China. First being the trip from Wuxi to Hangzhou. Lady Luck smiled upon me, I made it to the ticket check just before they barred the entrance. If anything, I think it helped that Hangzhou train station was smaller in comparison to the rest of the stations I've been. The biggest lesson learnt - China is big, the buildings in China are huge.


Side note: It's so so so cold today :|