A Wet and Adventurous Day in Hangzhou

On our last full day in Shanghai (Friday, June 7), we took a day trip outside the city to Hangzhou. This city is roughly 75 miles outside of Shanghai and we got there by a high-speed train. Our day began early, but we spent the first hour or two waking up at Gianni’s place, eating breakfast and watching the first three quarters of the Miami Heat’s Game 1 in the NBA Finals against the Spurs. They pronounce LeBron’s name here as something like “Le-Be-nan Jame-es-son.”

Well we made our way out the door and to the subway station. This was our first adventure of the day but thanks to a friendly worker at the station, we got on Line 10 very smoothly. We took that metro about 25 minutes and then got off at the end of the line at the Hangqiao airport railway station.

Once there (an absolutely huge train station) we had to get in line to buy a ticket to Hangzhou. This was adventure number two because the line appeared VERY long and there was no English writing telling us if we were in the right line. Tony asked someone at an information booth if this was the right line and they told him it was. Our first impression was that this line would be about an hour, but it ended up being about 25 minutes. We secured a ticket for a train that would be leaving that station in about 30 minutes. It was now 12:30 PM. Our train would arrive in Hangzhou at roughly 2pm and we were already getting hungry.

Adventure number three included finding the track we would be leaving from (again, it was a HUGE station) and then running up to the second floor and finding a quick lunch. I don’t eat McDonald’s when in the States, but that was our best option today. It was quick and surprisingly delicious. We scarfed it down and then boarded our train with 10 minutes to spare.

The train was amazing. You could tell it was new, as were the tracks. Most of these high speed trains have been built in the last five to ten years, some even more recent, including new lines. In 50 minutes we arrived in Hangzhou.

Adventure number four: which way to go without flagging down a taxi. We ended up walking in the right direction. About a half mile down we popped into a travel agency and asked the woman at the counter if we were going in the right direction to the West Lake. She confirmed we were but instructed us to turn right a couple blocks up. We did.

Oh, did I forget mention the greatest detail of the day? It was pouring rain on and off. We almost considered not going down to Hangzhou for that reason, as it was also raining very hard in Shanghai. But we both had rain jackets and decided to make the most of it. During the first part of our walk towards the West Lake, it wasn’t raining much at all. The walk was at least a mile and a half from the station to the lake and on the way, there were some nice little tourist shops as well as some other clothing stores – mostly small businesses. I should also note that we saw very few Westeners in this town (and probably no Americans) so we stood out among the loca Chinese.

Our plans for the day called on us renting bikes and going around the West Lake, stopping at various sites along the way. We half succeeded, but given the conditions I thought we were champs (especially Tony).

Adventure number five included figuring out how to rent bikes. They had all these little automated stations around the city where you could pick up and drop off any of the bikes they had. The challenging thing is that you needed some kind of smart card first and none of the instructions were in English. We finally found a station with an attendant and we had to fill out a small application form for a bike. The rental for each person for the day was 100 RMB (about $17 US dollars) but you had to leave a deposit of an additional 200 RMB, which would be refunded upon return of the bike (see adventure 7 below). We only knew all this because she handed us a bilingual form that had the instructions on it.

Just minutes before we rented the bikes, the rain started to come down. And it got progressively harder over the next 2 hours or so. We rode almost a half mile down to the West Lake. And then tried to bike around it, probably riding a mile or so in each direction. This was adventure number six. And for me, this was the most challenging and uncomfortable part of the day. Our rain jackets didn’t cover our shorts, socks, or shoes (especially when on a bike, you expose these areas to the water more).

We were quickly soaked, pedaling on pretty small bikes (my knees were constantly hitting the handle bars). Tony was much more determined then I was to go on further. We saw a few little sights, viewed the lake, and hid under a gazebo for a few minutes, which allowed us to enjoy the view of the lake and take some photos. While we didn’t get to see much of the lake, I will say that standing under that gazebo on a rainy day did make the place look a bit more mystical…not to mention getting a break from the rain for a few minutes felt glorious.

After about two hours or so – I felt like the equivalent of having gone on Splash Mountain about 20 times in a row. Finally we decided to head back and return the bikes and just walk around the other parts of the city, where we saw some of those little tourist shops.

So, adventure number seven started when we tried to return the bikes. We went back to the same station we got them from only to find the attendant gone. It was 4:10 PM. Did she only attend it until 4pm? Were we about to lose $35 each? I peeked inside and saw her jacket was still on her chair. Maybe she took a break? We decided to wait a few minutes. Lo and behold about five minutes later, she arrived. We couldn’t communicate with her in Chinese so we made gestures indicating we were returning our bikes and waiting for our refund.

Despite the fact we had just given her cash two hours prior, she gestured back that this was not the station where we would receive our refund. You have got to be kidding us. And when we tried to find out where we needed to go, all we got from her was a point in the direction we had just come from (towards the West Lake and away from the shops and train station we were eventually headed for). I asked (in gestures) how far away this station was and she indicated it was about 5 minutes. Hmm.

We got back out in the rain and tried our luck. We rode down the street and we found it! We dropped off the bikes and went up to the window where we had to give them back a copy of our forms/smart card and then we patiently waited for them to return our deposit. We got it back and we were now back out walking in the rain, soggy socks, shoes, and all.

We walked about a little over a half mile back to where those little shops were and we stopped first at Dairy Queen (hey, we earned this). Speaking of Dairy Queens, they’re everywhere – we saw lots of them in Shanghai and now here in Hangzhou. We walked through the shops and glanced at the time. It was nearly 5:00 PM. We had bought a round trip on that high speed train and our train back didn’t leave until 7:00 PM. But we knew there was an earlier one that left at 6:00 PM. Could we try to exchange our ticket for the earlier train? Hello adventure number 8!

We walked briskly back to the train station (much easier and quicker now that we knew where we were going). We got there about 5:30 PM and found the ticket office. We went up to one counter and we were then told to go to another counter, where the line was longer. The clock was ticking. By the time we got up there, it was 5:45 PM. They quickly exchanged our tickets and now we had to bust across the train station quickly to make the 6:00 PM train. We got there just a few minutes before it started boarding. Since there were hundreds of people ahead of us, we had some time and we patiently boarded our train. The boarding of that many people at once was impressive.

The train left pretty much on time and we arrived in Shanghai just a few minutes before 7:00 PM. We had texted Gianni to let him know we had taken the earlier train back. We connected to the subway line and were at the station near his apartment at about 7:30 PM. We had to walk a few blocks outside. It was like a monsoon, with the wind blowing the rain sideways. Lets call those short few blocks of crazy weather adventure number 9 for the day.

We walked back into Gianni’s apartment soaking wet and quickly described to him our day in much simpler terms than I just did in this post. We showered up and a nice home cooked Chinese dinner was served by Gianni’s cleaning lady. Once again, our new friends Flo, Jo, and Tim joined us for dinner as well. It was a splendid meal after a wet and adventurous day.

We had hoped to see more of Hangzhou on this day but the weather was our biggest challenge. However, we went with the flow and treated the day like an adventure. Marco Polo allegedly visited the city of Hangzhou during the Middle Ages. He called it “the most heavenly city on earth.” Well, the heavens opened up for us on this day and at times it was probably wet enough to play “Marco Polo.” We didn’t play that famous swimming pool game, but instead we just took an adventure in Hangzhou. Adventure is what this trip has been all about.