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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: -
- Dawn at Su Causeway in Spring (蘇堤春曉)
- Curve Garden and Lotus Pool in Summer (曲院風荷)
- Autumn Moon over Peaceful Lake (平湖秋月)
- Winter Snow on Broken Bridge (斷橋殘雪)
- Leifeng Pagoda in the Sunset (雷峰夕照)
- Two Peaks Piercing the Clouds (雙峰插雲)
- Orioles Singing in the Willows (柳浪聞鶯)
- Fish Viewing at the Flower Pond (花港觀魚)
- Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon (三潭印月)
- Evening Bell Ringing at the Nanping Hill (南屏晚鐘)
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…..
Click HERE to view all my Hangzhou and China travel photos via Flickr
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
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This was the first destination to where we went straight from PuDong international airport of Shanghai. My first impression when I first stepped out from the airport was the misty weather, especially during autumn when we were there. The weather was cool at 18°C as expected but the whole city was covered by the thick mist which was a bit disappointed (in the eye of a social photographer ). However, skyscrapers and multi-storey flyover did impressed me as well. Being the biggest financial centre of China, Shanghai do demonstrate very well on its status with modern buildings, busy traffics, Asian highest telecommunication tower and 24-hour business and entertainment, as well as multi-racial community.
Though it was only 5pm in the afternoon, the sky turned dark when we reached our first stop, Cheng Huang Miao, or the city god temple of Shanghai (Chinese: 城隍庙). It used to be a temple in the old city of Shanghai, and is today the central feature of a large retail and entertainment district. Together with nearby Yuyuan Garden and the surrounding streets, Cheng Huang Miao is now part of a large pedestrian compound dedicated to restaurants and retails.
Before the entrance to ChengHuangMiao, we needed to walk pass an old street with shops at both sides and stalls in the middle selling all sorts of Chinese products such as souvenirs, foods, snacks, cloths shoes and etc. “THANKS” to our Chinese tour guide, Ah Mei, she had actually given us some lectures before we stepped down from our coach: “Don’t ever look at or buy anything from these stalls or shops, they are all inferior staffs!”. I could understand her intention. I would propably tell my foreign friends the same thing if they were visiting Malaysia, in order to protect our country’s image. But I realised later in the trip that her statement was sometimes untrue, especially when we wanted to buy some cheap souvenirs later regardless of whether they are made of crystal or just glass, we actually have not given any chance and time. Although I’ve been told the same by my friends before that and did have a quick shop along the way, we did not buy anything either, except two bags of local chestnuts along our way out.
Once we entered the compound of ChengHuangMiao, what laid in front of us were full varieties of retails and restaurants. The main attraction of the new ChengHuangMiao is the building architecture. All buildings are designed and built in ancient Chinese style of architectures. With the great lighting design, the place was really attractive to our naked eyes.
We were given an hour to shop around and Starbucks was the place to gather before exiting. Starbucks is the most successful cafes selling coffees in China where chinese tea and beer are their common beverage. Starbucks could be seen everywhere, even inside the compound of this ‘temple’ .
‘Bing Tang Hu Lu’ or crystalised honey plum stick was the first snack we tried in ChengHuangMiao…. Its taste was not to our expectation though
‘He Fung Lo’ or Piece and Full Restaurant (direct translation ) is the largest eatery in the compound with more than 30 hawker stalls selling all sorts of local foods and drinks. We rushed in with no second thought…
Look at these hungry devils….. We tried the famous local dim sum, Shanghai ‘Xiao Long Pao’ or Little Dragon Dumpling, but still not the best we’ve had so far..
After that, we walked around to continue our windows shopping while admiring the great handicraft skill of chinese contractors in these buildings.
One of the best goldsmith in the world is inside this old temple gold shop. They claimed to have the purest gold in the world with over 99.9999% purity…. wow.
Click Here to view Lighbox of this photo set in full resolution via Flickr
‘La Yang Pian’ or ‘Xi Yang Jing’ is one of the oldest entertainment in old China some 500 years ago where performers will sing, talk, speak and imitate creatively to entertain publics. By paying RMB5, you could experience these old jokes through the boxes!
After wandering around all these streets, without buying anything (haven’t warmed up yet since it was our first day and first destination in China), we left ChengHuangMiao for our next destination…. dinner time!! – Travel Feeder.
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Finally. After 8 activities-packed days in Shanghai….. I’m BACK!!! To be exact, it was not Shanghai trip but a round-up trip covering Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuzhen, Nanjing, Suzhou, and Wuxi…. all in 8 days! It is normal when we book a vacation package to China that seldom travel agencies would organise trip to only 1 single [...]
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The recent global financial meltdown started in US when its real estate market bubble burst and banking instituition went insolvent. Soon after the US, other world’s major financial instituitions reacted fast to slump to a new low and the crude oil price index has dropped to a recording low price since 5 years ago! This chain link effect is further evident in [...]
Tik..tuk…tik..tuk… The clock start counting down! Yes, I’m going to Shanghai this winter! The countdown began yesterday after we have booked a travel package to Shanghai at MATTA fair, Putra World Trade Centre, KL, Malaysia! You can feel my excitement from the number of Exclamation marks with that I’ve ended all the above sentence!!! Ha.. [...]
