Hangzhou was my 5th city. It really was quite different from the others. I guess that sentence does not mean much in that each of the places I stopped was very unique.
I’m writing this page from the prospective of 5 months later. Many of the other pages, especially the “non town” ones were written while I was in China or directly thereafter. Since then I have started my 2020 winter bike travels and some of the writing about them. But I am so glade to have the time and motivation to get back to this scenario!
Hangzhou is somewhat of a resort town, or at least that is how it thought of itself in the past. The focus is the West Lake with many parks and hotels. I am always interested in resorts. I think they have a wonderful mix of visitors and year rounders. Given a choice, I would usually visit a resort town instead of an historical one. I know they are sometimes the same but my understanding of Hangzhou was that the Chinese tourists, from the past and wealthy, came here for the waters etc, not particularly for some ancient sight.
Here, for the first time, I found great bars with English speaking customers. I imagine also that I had reached a plateau in the China Jurney where I was ready to slow down and just ramble. I felt confident attacking a new city with its subway and buses.
Below are both cell phone pictures of my PC screen. I use a OLD outliner tool called KeyNote NF (new features to distinguish from some Microsoft product, totally unrelated, that came out later) I keep EVERYTHING in keynote. There is a China 2019 topic and under it one reference card says Letter to Family and these are shots of the text on that card. The purpose of the first is to be able to show someone on the street the Chinese for the EBO hotel that I am looking for.
This second shot allows me to read the subway line and stops that I have worked out ahead of time give me some chance of of getting to EBO Hotel!
My room was not ready for occupancy so I had lunch next door in a small cafe. The beer, Panda Eyes Monkey Ale was a wonderful strong one I had seen before in grocery stores in Wuhan.
Below is my normal “take a selfie” trick where I am only pretending so that I can take a picture of my surroundings. I think this normal lunch shop is a great example of China as a first world country. I would be surprised to see a place like this in Cancun Mexico or Lagos Portugal but it would look perfectly at home in Boston or LA.
The Subway. This is kind of a belt and suspenders situation. Remember I carry 3 iphones, two with sim cards and one with just GPS. The chances of not being able to access a subway map are low but, Tom, being Tom, also takes a picture of the subway map before leaving the relative predictability of the PC and the wifi. Now I know I have it with me!
Buses! This may be its own page in a few moments. As you have seen, Hangzhou has an extensive subway system but in order to travel in smaller increments but not walk, and of course not pay for a taxi, the bus is the option. Also, regarding the taxi, one has to communicate some direction to the driver and that often proved to be very difficult for me! I also was cheap enough that I wanted to agree on a taxi fee before starting and if you don’t know where you are going, that can be a little hard. I guess I should have a plaque with the chinese that says “Give me a 1$ ride”! Anyway, here is what you are faced with at the bus stop: I did not take the time to blow up this image but trust me that the stops are all listed BUT in chinese. At least one can tell which number buses stop at this location.
Below I have gotten to the other side of the lake and I am trying to remember what buses come here. The easy way is not to write down the numbers but just take a picture!
Below looks like one of the rarest of animals, a bus map. It looks to me as if it is a screen shot of my PC. I can see some bus numbers on it but as you can see it is pretty non-english. I never did very well with the Hangzhou bus system but I sure spent a lot of time riding them!
In Hangzhou and in China in general I did a lot of getting on the bus and then hopping off very quickly when it turned the wrong way. Of course my phone GPS allowed me to evaluate if a turn was good or bad. The problem is that the stops are often quite far apart and I had to do a LOT of walking to get back to where the “wrong” turn transpired. Generally the bus charge was low enough that this strategy worked, one only had to be sure to have enough change to execute on it!!
Here is an interesting and oft repeated China item that I have never seen anywhere else, the stop light sun shade!
The people on cycles and motor bikes are waiting for a light BUT they are under a protective covering that is just meant to keep them out of the sun while they wait! Of course it doubles as rain cover also!
More than in most locations, I spent a lot of time just wondering. As you can read in the great bicycle search posting I had a theme. Mainly I think trips have a rhythm. There are days when one is driven to do such and such and others were one is happy to just pass the time.
A father and son out on the sidewalk.
A running track burriend in a square
A pedestrian mall:
A apple store?
A man from the country landscaping a part of a park
The lake that is the focus of Hangzhou as a resort:
A group practicing on the street for a forthcoming performance?
Somethings are still antiques!
The next three pictures show you a way China uses to cut down on pedestrians slowing down street traffic!. Sometimes they build elevated cross overs
and, as below, they have dug tunnels!! The second picture shows a map to help you get where you are going in the under intersection tunnel.
Another couple views of Hangzhou elevated pedestrian crossing at night.
And even a selfie!
Here is another great street scene, a man with a teddy bear!
Wait! Its a dog!
I have not talked about the subway in Hangzhou very much but I did use it. Here I thought a young man was playing go, asked to take a picture of his screen (hand gestures only) and it is probably Chinese Chess?
