After a wonderful few days in Huangshan Nick and I took an afternoon high speed train to Hangzhou east train station. It was less than 2 hours long and passed many of the classic sights we’ve been seeing on our train rides. There were villages, rice fields, and mountains. It was raining pretty hard so was difficult to see out of the window, though. The train station itself was massive but luckily easily labelled for us to navigate out of.

In Hangzhou we stayed in a small apartment on the 18th floor with views of the surrounding skyscrapers. The owner had it filled with hundreds of books. It was nice having access to a washing machine and kitchen for a few days. It seems silly but it feels like luxury when we’ve been used to hand washing everything and no fridges.

We spent the entire Saturday walking around West Lake. The lake is huge and has a large walking path that goes around the perimeter. Since it was a Saturday it was incredibly busy. The path has some bridges, pavilions, pagodas, shacks serving various goodies, and parks along the way. There were also pleasure boats taking people from one place to another across the lake.

Nick and I opted for just walking which took several hours, mainly due to the traffic and not the distance. We enjoyed some mango sorbet, fried dumplings served on top of a cup of broth, candied strawberries, pork buns, and crispy bread with pork inside. Nick was mildly disappointed in the broth but mostly because he thought he was getting cold plum soup based on what he pointed to. We’ve learned we can never be too confident that we know what we’re getting.

The rest of our time in Hangzhou was uneventful. There were water villages somewhat nearby, but we opted to rest and catch up on some logistics as Nick wasn’t feeling well. We had a big adventure coming up next so it was nice to relax a bit in our little apartment and just walk around our neighborhood.

We tried several yummy dishes here including braised eggplant with pork, dim sum, beans with garlic, and pork buns.