Hangzhou | the Grand Canal

First of all, wishing everyone a Merry, Happy Christmas!! 

Our first boat ride in China was in Hangzhou. A boat ride along the Grand Canal. 

A photo first with the stone

It was pretty cold in Hangzhou that morning. The coldest since we were in China, around 0C that day!!

The view of the Grand Canal before we embarked on our tourist boat. The boat ride took about 40 minutes.  Then we disembarked and went for a short walk to Jinji Temple before our bus picked us up to our next destination in Hangzhou. 

Development around the canal

Splitting into two

Emperor QianLong

Emperor Kangxi

Replica of the boat used by Emperor to travel to Hangzhou

The canal

Shoplots along the canal

One of the shops

Jinji Temple

I loved this golden tree. Forgot what it was

Flowers still blooming in winter

Another lovely flower plants in the temple garden

Hangzhou | West lake

From Wuxi, we proceed to Hangzhou. More than 3 hours bus ride. Hangzhou is known for good universities, legends as well as beautiful, scenic places.

One of such famous place in Hangzhou is the West Lake. A UNESCO world heritage site, there are many legends concerning the West Lake but the most famous one would be the legend of the Lady White Snake. A touching folk story of a fairy (white snake named Bai SuZhen) and her mortal lover, Xu Xian.

It was at this Long Bridge on West Lake that the lovers met and the LeiFeng Pagoda at the background was where Lady White Snake was imprisoned. Not till the water in West Lake dried out or LeiFeng Pagoda collapsed, can Lady White Snake be released. 

The pagoda did collapsed in 1924 and witnesses saw a maid helping a beautiful lady from the rubbles. The current pagoda was built in 2000 standing on the original site, overlooking the beautiful legendary lake. 

Many tourists were roaming around while we were there. Got to be careful, not to bump into someone as there wasn't much protection on the bridge. You may fall into the icy water as no high railing on both sides of the bridge to protect you!!

It was turning dark soon but that did not stopped people from walking and taking photos of the charming West Lake and its surrounding. We even saw 3 brides taking photos in the cold, freezing winter!!

The night turned dark fast in winter, around 5pm the sky slowly darken. I was happy that I managed to catch the beautiful sunset before everything turned black. 

Wuxi | we feast

A detour from our tour. Right now, I am going to talk about food!! 

Actually most of the food we had in China were more or less the same. Lunch and dinner, almost the same dishes that by 2nd day, we were pretty bored and kind of missing our  Malaysia's much flavourful, versatile dishes. 

But when you are travelling, trying out the local cuisine is part and parcel of travelling and living like the locals. 

We arrived in Wuxi from Suzhou in time for lunch. In this Chinese restaurant, we were treated to a live Chinese musical orchestra while we were dining. Actually those elderly were practising and after they were done, they were treated to lunch by the restaurant. 

On our first night in Wuxi, our Wuxi tour guide arranged for us to taste their Lake Taihu's specialty dishes. 

The white prawn is one of their specialities. Very very small fresh water crustacean. I tasted one and it was nothing much to shout about. The prawns were cooked in soup so they were sweet but too small to my liking. Hard to peel the shells. 

Wuxi people like their food sweet. They basically add sugar or sweetener in their food. Like these xiao long bao. They were sweeter than what we tasted in Shanghai. 

Another Lake Taihu specialty was this fresh water fish. Many bones but sweet flaky flesh. 

Their vegetarian dish was nice, I remembered that I enjoyed it very much. 

Another delicious dish on the table was the roasted duck. Delicious. Other dishes, I did not take photos of. More or less the same like what we had in other places. I will write about it another day. 

The next day we went to pearl shop to see some pearls products. 

No, we didn't buy any pearl jewelleries, but I ended up with many packs of pearl powder. I took pearl powder as kid so I knew how good they were. 

After a visit to pearl shop, we had grill and steamboat in this restaurant for lunch in Wuxi. We enjoyed this lunch the most. All you can eat buffet. 

Of course we took a lot of meats, beef, pork and chicken. And also fresh oysters. No lemon slices on the buffet table so we used oranges instead. 

See, I was happy to cook and how I enjoyed the grill.

The kids also enjoyed walking around and checking on the buffet spread. Jay for instance helped himself to 2 cones of ice-cream at the dessert table!! Nothing wrong to take ice-cream on winter day!! 

We spent more than 2 hours there before we bid Wuxi goodbye and headed to our next destination, Hangzhou! 

Wuxi | natural reserve

From Suzhou, we moved to Wuxi. It was pretty cold in Wuxi, temperature ranging from 6 to 15C. But the coldest winter we had was not in Wuxi. That would be another story to tell later. 

If Suzhou is famous for canals and silk, then Wuxi is famous for its beautiful lakes and production of fresh water pearls. 

One of such famous lakes was Taihu lake. It was a very big lake. Cannot see the whole lake from one side.  To me, it was like a sea.

In Wuxi, we were met by the local tour guide. Cold and windy day so everyone wasn't so happy to stand in the cold for so long. 

Luckily they provided bus to bring us around. Quicker, easier, warmer as the bus covered with thick plastic sheet. 30RMB per person but free for young kids. 

The route shown in the bus. We made 2 stops and our tour guide briefed us on the purpose of Taihu lake. 

First stop was here where you could see birds habitat. Sombre and calm winter view here. 

2nd stop was here, a pier. The lake view was equally mesmerising here. 

This was just a small stretch of Lake Taihu. A natural reserve and park. Other part of the lake were kept for fresh oyster farm and other water activities. 

Suzhou | classic garden

I was enamoured with this classic Chinese garden, and you would too if you were here.

It felt like you are walking in a secret garden with the cultivated plants and classical landscape in Couple's Retreat Garden (Ou Yuan). Definitely a must visit to this classical Chinese garden as it is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After the visit to Jinji lake and Bird Nest, we were driven to this place. It was getting colder in the evening.  In previous post, I did not posted on canals although Suzhou is a water town. I have included some canal photos in this post as it was around Ou Yuan.

Lovely and clean right?? The sombre winter air and the evening hue slowly embraced us while we were here.

We were greeted by our Suzhou tour guide there. We were briefed on some history of this place. Used to be owned by an official and his wife many many years ago. They were very loving couples, and every evenings, they would had a walk around their garden. A loving gesture among the couple.

Most furniture and structures were still intact, and the garden was maintained.

There was 2 cherry blossom trees in the garden. No leaves but there were cherry bloosoms on the trees. First time seeing a real tree!!