A day in Hangzhou

... and the adventure continues!! 

Today, I went with two of my same-aged classmates to Hangzhou! They are roommates and we've been spending quite a lot of time together! They've been inviting me over to watch TV, eat fruits (I'm learning how to say no since fruits kill me...), etc! They originally planned to go to Hangzhou on Saturday, but they changed their plans to accommodate my weekend plans!

My very very first experience on a train in China! I've always wondered what it's like and I've always heard horror stories of no space, very crowded and very dirty. But I guess with time, things have changed. It is definitely more spacious than an aircraft! I would have to say, my experience was quite pleasant. Well, maybe minus being overcrowded at the station... I hate being claustrophobic... argh. I also dislike people who walk really slow... which is 90% of the people in China unless they are wanting something... 

From Shanghai to Hangzhou only took an hour and ten minutes, with 3 stops in between. I think max speed almost reached 300km/h!  

 We visited 西湖 (West Lake), which was only a couple metro stations away from the railway station. Man, when we walked outside... Hangzhou reached a high of 46.5 degrees... I missed how "cool" Shanghai was.

We first went to feed our stomachs... We went to a place which is quite famous called 外婆家 (Grandma's Home). We were 40 tables away... so to speed things up we requested to split the table up and sit with other people, which is pretty normal. We sat with a family of 3 and a couple, it was an interesting experience. They were all very friendly and... they ordered wayyy too much food we all had a good laugh... Take a look!

  We should have gathered our forces to order and split our food.. we realized too late... what was really funny was all 3 groups ordered the exact same thing... 

After a super late lunch (we finished around 3ish), we went to tour around West Lake and went on a boat ride! It was super sketchy and we were all scared that it might flip. Turns out I do get seasick... but thanks to my bff Gravol! 

We wanted to walk around the lake and it got wayyyy toooooo hot so we had to hide inside for a bit where there was aircon... I'm sure many people got heatstroke today :(

Around 5ish when the sun went down, we started walking to this tower (雷鋒塔) which was an hour and a half away... It was a good walk, and even though there was no sun, we sweated a lot... We didn't go into the tower though, it was too late for admission and we were pretty tired from the walk.

Here's a glimpse of the beautiful West Lake and pictures of us! My first time and hopefully not my last time!

And then we taxi-ed it to the railway station because we were all exhausted and took the train back to Shanghai!

Well, it's been 2 weeks since I've been in Shanghai. What does that mean? I'm back home in 2 weeks! I'm enjoying my time in Shanghai, but I do miss home... especially since it's Mama Chung's birthday today... I really want to be home. 

Happy birthday, mom!