Hangzhou, China, Asia

I woke up this morning and felt a little hungover. I guess I’m just not used to drinking anymore, so those beers and the bucket set me back a bit. I was in no hurry to get to Hangzhou, especially since I knew it was only an hour train ride away, so I took my time this morning. I got some breakfast downstairs, booked a night back at this hostel for tomorrow night and packed up my little backpack to set off down the road.

I made my way over to Hangzhou Hongqiao Railway Station and found a ticket booth with a sign over it saying “English speaking booth”. That’s what I’ve been looking for this whole time! I really like Shanghai now! I got my ticket for the G train (or Bullet train as it’s better known), and hopped on at 2pm. Unfortunately I was given a middle seat, so it wasn’t the most comfortable, but for an hour I could deal with it.

It was a really nice train and it was fast! There was a little screen at the front of the carriage that was showing how fast we were going. I don’t know how factual it was though, because the top speed I saw was 297kph, which converts to about 200mph. I’ve never travelled at 200mph on land before so I don’t know what that feels like, but it just didn’t seem like we were going that fast. Regardless, we made two stops and still made it there in one hour.

When I got in to Hangzhou, I was reminded why I disliked travelling through China so much. Nothing was in English and finding my hostel was more difficult than any other hostel in the world. The directions from the hostel said to take bus Y7 from a stop called SiShanYiYuan. I would have thought that was at the train station I came into, but it wasn’t. It was a fifteen minute walk away, and not at a bus station, just a random stop on the side of the road. It turns out SiShanYiYuan is actually the name of the city hospital, so everyone I asked just kept pointing me back to the building, but the bus stop was actually further down the street. After walking around like a moron, and some help from a very friendly Chinese girl, I found the bus stop and the Y7 bus. It’s a good thing that girl was there, because the bus isn’t actually called Y7. It’s a Chinese symbol and then the number 7. I would have let it go right by.

Luckily I just had to take it to the end of the line, so I knew I was getting off at the right stop when the driver turned the bus off and walked away. The problem was that the directions in the email from the hostel were so vague, I had no idea where I was going. I walked around for about 15 minutes looking for a well that I was meant to find, but couldn’t see it. I finally called the hostel and the guy said he would come down and get me in five minutes. Twenty minutes later I was still standing there. I was the only white guy, and the only guy over 5’10” for miles, so I should have been easy enough to spot. He didn’t see me. I called back up to the hostel and was a bit nervous now that the bus driver let me off at the wrong place. Luckily the guy came down again and found me, but I had been let off on the wrong side of the road.

I got up to the hostel and checked in and this place is not very nice. It has a certain charm because of the way it’s decorated like a really chilled hostel, but everything is pretty dirty. There are about five cats that live here, so that’s not great, I don’t like cats. But I’ve checked in to my single room, which isn’t very clean either, but I’ll survive. I had some dinner at the restaurant hoping to meet some other travelers, but again, I’m the only westerner here. I’m getting very used to that fact. I’m quite far out of the city center here, so there’s not much I can do at night. It’s going to be another quiet night for me here. Good thing I just downloaded two new episodes of Dexter to watch!

I woke up this morning and decided to do something stupid; I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 5. It seemed like a good idea at the time when I started the download at 7:30am. It seemed like a bad idea when I was still trying to sort out the wreckage at noon. The restore didn’t go well, so I ended up having to restore it as a new phone and start from scratch. I got all my contacts and music back, but I lost all my details from any apps (text messages, lists, games). Not cool Apple.

I finally checked out of the 4 Eyes Youth Hostel and headed out to see what Hangzhou had to offer. It was just another big city really, but I was in a nicer part of town, just outside the city center. I was near West Lake, which is a beautiful lake just to the west of the city, obviously. I had a walk through the parks at the lake, which is a kind of national park. I also paid to go up the Leifing Pagoda, and that was well worth it. It had been a really old pagoda, but it was knocked down and then rebuilt in 2002, so it’s not so old now. It was very interesting to see and there was a great view from the top. Of course, because I’m in China, it was a bit hazy, but much better than most other days.

I hung around in the park for a few hours and then headed back into town to catch a train to Shanghai. I ended up catch the 5:13pm Bullet train, and this one didn’t make any stops on the way back. Top speed: 313km/h. That equates to 194mph. That’s ridiculous. No wonder it only took 49 minutes to get to Shanghai. Shanghai is such a breeze as a traveler now, I love it. Everything about it is just so easy. I really do love this city.

I checked back in to the Rock & Wood Hostel and got settled back into the same room I had before. Before getting too comfortable though, I grabbed my tripod and headed out for the night to take some pictures. It was a nice clear night and I figured if I put if off to tomorrow night it would probably end up raining. I’m really glad I went out too. That skyline looks even more amazing at night. I spent a while snapping shots at the Bund looking over at the Pudong area of the city. I got A LOT of weird looks when I was taking pictures, as if people had never seen a tripod before. A couple of curious people came right over and were staring at the whole setup for minutes. I’m not even sure they knew what a camera was.

I grabbed one of the last subways home around 10:30pm and I’m back at the hostel now. Tomorrow I’ll have a day to check out the city, but first I’ll have to move to an airport hotel. All this moving around is exhausting! I need more sleep!