Tuesday 5/25/04

Yesterday I met up w/ my friend Neil and we walked out to an open-air bazaar full of all sorts of souvenirs. I bought eleven pairs of underwear and I just cannot stop talking about them to anyone who will listen. They are perhaps the cutest eleven pairs of underwear in the universe. Some of them have 3-d flappy ears for godsakes! And monkeys, with fabric strips for tails! VPL be damned, if anyone asks why I have strange triangle shapes showing through my pants I will be more than happy to explain.

After the bazaar I went to the Bund/Pudong, which is the modern skyline on the river that you see in most pictures of Shanghai. I went to the top of a Captain’s hostel to have a drink and watch the sunset and the turning on of the city lights, and ran into a guy from Laguna Beach there. Small world!

Today, I went to Hangzhou, a city about 2 hours away from Shanghai. It is the top vacation spot for mainland Chinese, because it was renowned through the ages for its breathtaking scenery, and has been immortalized in many classic texts and artwork.

A lady accosted us at the train station offering us a private driver/tourguide for 50 kuai for all four of us, for the whole day! We figured it would be too good to be true but went anyway—the car was really nice and hey, what were we to lose? We knew the tourguide would try to make commission off of us by taking us to overpriced shops. After driving through fields of tea plants, we arrived at a tea shop where I bought some very overpriced longshan green tea (but it was good tea and hey, that’s how the driver makes a living so I didn’t really care too much that I was paying twice the price, it was, after all, just 8 bucks). Unfortunately I and my travelmates apparently didn’t buy enough tea, so the driver ditched us during lunch with a flimsy excuse about “having a situation” that required his return to the city. We guessed that the “situation” was that a high-roller-looking group had just arrived at the train station and he was more than happy to leave us cheapskates. So, we were left alone in the middle of rural Hangzhou. We got a cab and set out to explore on our own.

We first went to the Peak Flying From Afar (cool name huh) which is a mountain with religious sculptures carved into the rock cliffs, and a magnificent temple on top. As with all religious architecture and monuments I’ve seen, I was struck at the dedication and detail that went into these works—and watching the monks pray while a giant gong reverberated across the mountain, and incense-smoke filled the air, really made me feel like I am truly in China.

Then, we headed to West Lake, the famed lake of Chinese lore and countless poems and paintings. We took a boat-ride in what seemed a lot like a gondola, singing gondolier and all. The day began to cool down and the legendary lake, pagodas and mountains were shrouded in an almost silky mist—just like the paintings! I wanted to sit and ponder and perhaps write a poem to add to the centuries of lore about this place—but more practical concerns of making our train forced us to leave.

An old Chinese saying: “In heaven, there is paradise; on earth, Hangzhou and Suzhou.”

Caught the train back to Shanghai, thoroughly stuffed our faces at an excellent Cantonese restaurant, then headed to meet Liana up for dessert at La Maison.

Total cost for the day (includes everything I did and ate and all transportation…and a nightgown for sherry): US$45.