When people talk about HangZhou, people talk about West Lake. West Lake (or XiHu‘ in Chinese) is the key landmark here at western part of the city where most of the tourisrism activities happened around this 6.5km² area. It is surrounded by mountain and trees at three sides and is divided into 5 lake sections by Su causeways, Yanggong causway, and three little islands. West Lake is famous for its 10 picture perfect scenes that appeared or happened around it throughout the year which include: -

HangZhou is a city of heaven while West Lake is the perfect place to relax by just simply walking along the 15km path surrounding the Lake, or sitting at one of the many chinese tea or coffee shops spotted nearby. We left Wan Song Academy for our first highlight of West Lake, Orioles singing in the willow (柳浪聞鶯).

Though we were not in the best Spring season to experience the best of willows and flowers, the scene was still looked great to me with the breezy weather, autumn willow, along the lake side walkway. Though the misty weather did affect the overall brightness and colour of my photos, it’s ‘bokeh’ feel did make something different to my photos. However, sometimes it was so misty that I need PS Element 6 to make it more contrasty!

Apart from hearing the brief introduction from our tour guide, Ah Mei, my time was mostly occupied behind the LCD screen of my Panasonic Lumix.

We kept walking and reached another scene of West Lake, Winter Snow on Broken Bridge (斷橋殘雪). No snow yet at the moment please!

Another famous attraction of West Lake is to take a tourist boat to cruise around West Lake admiring the Autumn Moon over Peaceful Lake (平湖秋月)…. sorry, no moon yet…  Some distance away we could see Lei Feng pagoda at the other end of West Lake.

If you want to cover the whole 10 scenes, you would need at least 2 days which explained why we were going to stay in HangZhou for 2 full days.

Later in the evening, just before the sunset, we decided to take a quick rest relaxing ourselves at one of the cafe in XiHu Tain Di, the dedicated zone of cafes in West Lake. Mr. Jin Yong, the legendary Chinese author, owns cafes here as well! The photo above above shows the directory of restaurants and cafes in XiHu Tian Di (West Lake Heaven and Earth).

Just before the sky turned dark at dusk, we left the magnificient scenes of West Lake for our dinner and watch a stunning musical show of ‘The Night Of XiHu’. Featuring most of the histories happened in HangZhou, we would regret if we miss this. It reminded me of the magnificient opening and closing ceremony of Beijing Olympics 2008.

 Opening show featured 4 local young vibrant ladies musician playing ancient guitar. This was the ‘best’ …..

Zhang Yi Mou‘s style of presentation…. acrobatic dance within a giant balloon. The lightings were so brilliant and attractive for photography. 

A historical scene featuring hero of HangZhou, Yue Fei and his subbordinates, armies of Song Dynasty.

Acrobatic presentation featuring young boy at the centre and 2 not so young but still young boys throwing vase at their back….

Crazy Yoga presentation with three young ladies overlapping and spinning around a stabilised metal rod…

This was familiar: Liang ShanPo and Zhu YingTai starred in this musical presentation with the scene where Liang and Zhu met each other at Wan Song Academy…

The most exciting moment of the night: Thousand Handed Guan Ying Liang Liang…..

The show ended at 9 something and it was our last activity of our first day travel in HangZhou. Oops! Guess what? It was not. My wife and I went out again after checking into our hotel for supper at one of the nearby restaurant. We had our favourite dumplings with a large bottle of local beer which was really cheap at RMB 5.00 only! For further updates of my travel to China, subscribe to my RSS Feeds, FREE, now! – Travel Feeder.

Photos were taken with Panasonic Lumix FZ28

For me, visiting a city that running or organising a major game such as the Olympic or World Cup, is always my last option, unless it is not my first visit to the city. The reason why is that I would not be able to see the ‘real’ side of that city after the ‘decoration’ done by the government to welcome visitors; And it is always extremely packed with travelers. Most importantly, the trip could easily cost you a bomb with accomodation price increased by a few folds! I would rather go there after the game. This is my principle of travel all the while until I saw the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympic Summer Games in Beijing on the 8th August 2008 started from 8:08pm, which in short would be written as: 8:08pm, 080808 (Number 8 stands for ‘Wealth’ in Chinese belief). In the most simple terms that I could describe is, it stunned me from start until end!

This is a special post that Travel Feeder is paying a tribute to the honourable Olympic city, Beijing. Though I have not been to Beijing, the last weekend-watching of the Olympic Games over my LCD at home has really touched the deepest side of my heart. Organiser’s efforts paid off. Since year 2001 when Beijing was elected as the host for XXIX Olmpic Games, the city has gone through various revamping exercise not only constructing new stadium or renovating existing venue but also improving the city’s image. New monuments, squares have been erected; Signboards of public amenities are also being rephrased with ‘proper’ English (I bet you have heard enough of those funny english-written signboard); Most importantly, Beijing people are also proud to be the host of the game and ready to welcome the world, ready to make the dream comes true! As their slogan says, ‘ONE WORLD ONE DREAM’.

Thanks to the event director, one of the world’s most significant director from China, Zhang Yi Mou, the opening ceremony was presented in such a magnificent and movie-like style. Having themes of different era of the Chinese history, it is telling the world that Chinese invented paper and fireworks by displaying a giant paper-like scroll enfold and over 20 minutes of fireworks display. The final historical moment and ceremony highlight of 2008 Olympic games would of course be the Olympic Flame lighting ceremony, accomplished by the last Olympic torch bearer, the 3-time-Olympic-Gold-Medalist, Li-Ning, also in a movie-like style of running in the air (thanks to the perfect acting manoeuver by Li-Ning). The Olympic Flame lighted up the sky of Beijing finally! It was perfect and the most spectacular Opening ceremony I have ever seen! And it was only over my LCD screen at home!! How about the audience in the Bird’s Nest Stadium? I couldn’t imagine.

It drove me crazy for not being present in Beijing to witness the historical moment of the 29th Olympic Games. I could see that the Olympic’s mood is all around Beijing and local people’s passion over Olympic just made me feel like going to Beijing immediately. No doubt, in terms of travelling, there are so much things to do in Beijing, ie. to visit the UNESCO heritage site of Forbidden City and Tian An Men square in the middle of Beijing; and also trying their infamous Beijing Roast Duck!! And it is why I’m so keen on recommending Beijing to the world eventhough it is against my principle of travel.  Travel Tips: As long as you have the budget, it is always great and worth to spend more on the city during the Olympic Games! – Travel Feeder.