Shanghai Trip Part 3 - Hangzhou!
Woke up early (again!) on Day 4 so we can ride the high speed rail to Hangzhou! The boy got the station wrong (Guys, remember it's Shanghai Hongqiao High Speed Rail station!) and we ended up on a little detour on the Shanghai MRT.
We had to queue for tickets as online purchase required a local passport/identity card. It's supposedly Monday but the high speed rail station was so darn crowded! Headed over to 真功夫 (resembles a fast food chain but they sell mostly steamed food and double boiled soup) for breakfast. I miss this chain so much! Used to patronize them on a daily basis when I was interning in Beijing.
The Shanghai Hongqiao station - see what I mean? Hahaha. It's a Monday and most are not in work wear. That's the queue for the other platform that is boarding for the ride towards Hangzhou too:
The ride to Hangzhou was a lot faster than I thought. We reached our destination within 45 minutes! Like Shanghai, the Hangzhou High Speed Rail station is attached to its MRT line as well. We took the train down to LongXiangQiao station (about 3 stops away if I remember correctly) where the famous Hangzhou West Lake is.
Outside the LongXiangQiao station:
The fake Apple store in Hangzhou. Looks completely legit!
The walk to West Lake was surprisingly short. We were there in 5 minutes. I would have expected a famous tourist destination in the form of a lake will be further away from civilization.
I've read a lot about the West Lake and watched the famous "Impressions of West Lake" on Youtube various times. Unfortunately, the West Lake didn't look THAT impressive in real life. Or maybe the heat and crowd was taking its toll on me. The area was surprisingly crowded for a weekday!
And then my Nikon V1 went kaput! =( Had to rely on my mobile phone thereafter. Bunch of people gathered around a tree because they spotted a squirrel:
The heat was unbearable and most part of West Lake had no shelters. So we sneaked a break at an Italian (?) restaurant nearby. The owner is an Italian dude who speaks perfect mandarin! Amazing.
Headed out when it was cooler in the later part of the afternoon.
After an afternoon of heat, we escaped to the malls nearby (at the train station) and had dinner there as well. Since we had no intention to stay in Hangzhou overnight, we took a night train back to Shanghai and that wrapped up our day trip!
The boy got me this at the train station while on our way back. Too sweet la this one!
Will be back on Suzhou and the Shanghai Wildlife Park (my favourite)!
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