Day 17 : wandering around Hangzhou

We got up early enough to take advantage of the hotel breakfast and experienced our first Chinese breakfast - meats, rice porridge, dumplings, silk worms and warm Tang drink. We didn't test everything though...

We were energized and ready to go to the Lingyin Temple, an active Buddhist temple just outside of the city. As legend goes, the temple was established there when an Indian monk recognized a hill from back home so the hill is called " Hill that came here by flying". We were impressed with the size of the grounds and the beauty of the buildings. There was incense burning and water flowing everywhere. But we wondered what it was like to be a monk there with all the tourists walking around and talking loudly.

We climbed up to the top of the hill and by the time we got down, we were very hot. We took our shoes off and walked around in the stream with all the other kids. Lunch was beggar's chicken, another local specialty - a whole chicken cooked in a ball of parchment with various spices. The chicken was really tender and flavorful.

We explored the city and after finding that many of the things listed in our guides didn't exist, we realized that the city was "new". Much of what was around our hotel - the center of town - looked like it had been built in the past couple months. Stores were still being painted and all the "chic" stores were opening in the next couple weeks. We settled in at Haagen-Daz for what turned out to be a very expensive ice cream. It is considered to be a luxury restaurant; we got yelled at for taking pictures inside. It was a strange cultural mix of Chinese etiquette, beret-wearing wait staff and American ice cream.

We needed a lazy night so we went to Carrefour where we bought some Belgian beer, brie, a baguette, more ice cream and cucumber flavored potato chips (vile). Tired and looking forward to leaving for Shanghai, we came back to the hotel to watch another bad movie.