Rosie Rides a Bike

..for the first time in 15 years.

After our 3 day river cruise we headed to Hangzhou, a town fairly close to Shanghai known for it's beautiful lake. Which truly was beautiful - and my favourite place so far since we left Tibet. The Lonely Plant describes the lake as being not quite real China - but a Grade A cover version. It made a welcome change from shopping mall after shopping mall! There was certainly money going about however - our hostel (right by the lake) was surrounded by Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Lambourghini...etc etc. Certainly a very 'nice' area.
We arrived at silly-o'clock (well, 6am) and as we were not yet able to check into our hostel went for an early morning stroll around the lake. The area has been lovingly designed and the sight of class after class of people practising Tai Chi in the parkland facing the lake was pretty inspiring. There were people doing exercises, going for walks and jogs - certainly nicer than any gym! The lake is surrounded with pagodas, willow trees and lilies - very much how I had pictured China. After finally checking in and having breakfast, we headed into town to a street lined with traditional stalls and shops where we wandered happily looking at chopstick shops and interesting food items. Sadly no scorpians on sticks here as kev had vowed to have one if we found them. Hangzhou really lent itself to wandering and we did a lot of it that day. We also found time for a trip on a boat on the lake, though got a little confused by the 'hop on hop off' system and missed some places we would otherwise have visited.
The next day was time to take to the hills surrounding the area for a hike. We found an AMAZING French bakery where we had coffee and pastries for breakfast, then bought some proper rolls to make our lunch. This is more impressive than it perhaps sounds as most of the bread here has something inside it or something on top and is invariably sweetened. We then bought ham, cheese and lettuce and made sandwiches. Again, more irpressive than it sounds. They were great. Anyway, the hike. Well, it turned out to be a slightly shorter hike than we had anticipated but took us a couple of hours and showed us some lovely scenery. Once we reached the end and found ourselves back at the make, we decided to hire bikes. People say you never forget how to ride one, but really, I was never that good at it in the first place! Fortunately we were able to cycle along a traffic free causeway (other than pedestrians and other bikes which scared me enough!)and I did pretty well. not quite reading for the Tour de France yet, but I never fell off. We finished the day by walking a good few kilometres to get back to our hostel. A really enjoyable day. That evening was World Cup night and, for once, a game at a semi decent time. A few beers, a win in the football and a live band afterwards was the perfect end to the day.
The third day in hangzhou was less successful as we spent a good deal of it trying to buy train tickets to Shanghai. Once we had finally accomplished this our original plan to visit a nearby village had to be changed as it was getting on a bit. And raining. I actually can't rememebr what we ended up doing for the afternoon but it can't have been much to write about!
For once we had a short journey to our next destination, Shanghai. We have been here a few days and seen a few of the sights, but sadly it has rained (heavily) almost non stop which as meant that we have taken refuge on a couple of occasions in the cinema. The big news here currently is the Expo which is BIG business - the whole city is Expo mad. We have talked to many people who have been and almost universally seemed say 'don't bother'. The idea of queueing for seperate exhibits in the rain for at least 2 hours at a time just hasn't appealled enough so we've given it a miss. I really like Shanghai, more than I expected to, although it is very much a city where money talks. The skyline along the Bund is an impressive sight, particularly at night when you can forget the grey skies and admire the neon light show on the various newer buildings on one side, then look to the otther side and see old buildings lit tastefully. Tomorrow we leave to Guangzhou before heading over to Hong Kong and Macau. Fingers crossed we'll see some sunshine, although the weather forecast doesn't look too hopeful!