Marco's Paradise

It seems that Marco Polo thought Hangzhou was paradise  and you can see why. The misty lake, the graceful bridges, the greenery. This is Real Chinese Stuff (tm) as you can see from my present banner pic. Looks right out of a Chinese dish, right?

However, as is often the case, there is trouble in Paradise. The weather was crappy for one thing. It did add some kind of misty poetic dimension to the sights, but running around being a tourist is generally nicer when it's sunny and dry.

And then the taxi drivers. Those belong right into hell.

The first, driving us from the station to the hotel, managed to misread a street name in pynin, attempt to drop us in the middle of nowhere, then finally drove us back to the other side of the city. Another was apparently unable to read an address-in Chinese this time- and reacted by yelling. Note to Chinese people: if a foreigner doesn't get what you're saying it's because they can't speak Chinese, not because they're deaf. Raising your voice won't help. Finally, there was the surreal spectacle of seeing taxi after empty taxi not stopping by. This is one of the great mysteries of China, one of those things that are literally unexplainable (as in, you seek possible explainations, but find none that makes sense).

Apart from the taxi misfortunes, Hangzhou is a treasure chest of a city, and, if you excuse the mixed metaphor, I think I saw only the tip of the iceberg. Another place I hope to go back to, and stay smack in the middle of the city so I can avoid taxis like plague (either that, or acquire a deep knowledge of Hangzhou's public transportation network). Anyway, sights included:

Silk Street. Hangzhou is famous for its silk. It's nice, but a bit touristy. I got a cute, wearable cotton Mandarin dress, but once again the hues of the scarves look weird and unbecoming on me.

This West Lake. It looks like something out of a dream. There's an island in which there are smaller lakes (but no islands on said smaller lakes).

Hangzhou is also famous for its Dragon Well green tea. This is the tea museum, which is a massive tea field with some explainatory stuff in a building on the side. Again like something out of a dream.

A temple, which is the tomb of General Yue Fei, big national hero and model of filial piety:

And this is just a small part of what I saw, and an even smaller part of what there is to see.