This week was a long weekend so my parents decided to take us to Hangzhou. The trip was extremely brief, but amazing. Here’s an overview

Friday afternoon, we left for Hangzhou and after a 40min subway ride and a 1hr train ride, arrived in Hangzhou at around 5.

We got into a taxi, checked in, blah, blah and around 6 had dinner at 山外山!!!!!! The restaurant was amazing (and not crowded). After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and went to sleep. Thus concleded a not so eventful day.

The next morning, we hiked……..for 6.5hrs. The route took us from ZheJiang University, through the mountains, all the way to 宋城, for a total of 22km. It seems long and hard, but we stopped a lot so the hike itself was pretty easy.

First we walked over to ZheJiang University and strolled along, looking at the buildings. Both my parents graduated from there 25 years ago, so they had fun looking at the old buildings. After a while, we went over to the start of the hike, which was behind the school

And thus, we continued to hike through the mounains

Remember the blue skies from the university picture? Forget about it. 15min after we got into the mountains, it started raining. The mist was amazing though.

After a few hours, we finally got out of the mountains and into the Longjing tea plantations. Soon afterwards, we got to 梅家坞, a beautiful and small village full of small teahouses. Sadly, we didn’t have time to stop and have a cup.

We then continued to 宋城, another 5km or so from 梅家坞, but it was really fake and not worth visiting. Plus, we were all exhausted. That night, we took a taxi to 茅家埠, another little village where we had delicious farm style cuisine at a tiny restaurant.

We had quick, preserved cucumber, sauteed bok choi, and stewed chicken. That chicken was to die for!!!! After saying goodby, we headed for the train station and returned to Shanghai!!! What a wonderful trip

Have you been hiking in HangZhou? Please comment

 

• Chinese