Exploring Shanghai

I wandered randomly around Hangzhou today, exploring the promenade around the lake. I discovered a really nice teahouse by the water, and spent a couple of hours there drinking 2 pots of fruit tea, reading my book, and wathcing the boats on the water. Vacation can be really nice sometimes, especially when you find spots like this! 🙂

Eventually, I wound up in a nice area called Xihu Tiandi, somewhat similar to Xitiandi in Shanghai, only situated in a park near the lake, really beautiful surroundings! I had an amazing dinner at one of the expensive Chinese restaurants there. It was very convenient to get an english menu and english-speaking staff here.

Hangzhou has a very beautiful promenade along the lake shore

In the evening, I wanted to go shopping in the old commerce street. I took a cab there (which took me like 20 minutes to hail, damn these rush hours!) and milled about at random. I really liked how the city is thoroughly decorated, with nice decorative lights, and tons of well lit pedestrian streets lined with shops and restaurants.

I found out that the old street I was looking for was mainly closed, but I still found a few interesting shops, a sword outlet among other things. I did not buy one though, because all the good ones were thousands of yen. Maybe I’ll get one in a couple of years, until then I’ll just have to keep one on my birthday wish list!

Hangzhou restaurant street by night

I found another really weird shop. They selled jugs of preserved snakes, probably in some kind of oil. Notice the taps on the jugs in the picture? I found out that Chinese people will actually drink out of these for medicinal purposes. I just find that really really strange and a little bit revolting as well.

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