Our First Cuti-Cuti China: Hangzhou Day 1

This is a super belated post. We took this trip in October! 

Well, we finally managed to go for our very first long-awaited, long-put-on-hold local holiday. It was a short 2D1N weekend getaway to Hangzhou...

We took a high-speed train from the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway station. This railway station looked like an airport...it was huge and modern, and the system was impressively efficient! 

Inside the train....the journey took approximately 1h30m with a maximum speed of over 300km/h

We had an early lunch immediately after reaching Hangzhou. No lunch pic (we had pick-own-ingredient noodles) except for this big tumbler of fresh fruit juice that mummy bought for me after lunch :)

We spent 2 days (our entire trip) just walking leisurely around 西湖 or West Lake, Hangzhou's main attraction.

We took a boat ride too...

The boat ride cost about RMB40 (RM20+) per person (can't really remember the actual price cos it's been 2 months since the trip :p)

This is one of the many famous scenes of the Westlake 

We hopped off at an island in the lake.... 

The name of the island is "Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon" and the whole place is a beautiful park/garden!

Built in the early 1600s, this is the largest island on the lake. When there is a full moon, candles inside the pagodas are lit, and the candle light appears as though you see the moonlight, hence the name.

Typical Chinese architectural design... Round doorway

View of the city from afar

We visited a few more gardens on the mainland

Looking at one of the remains (all nicely preserved like this) of a temporary Imperial Palace of the Qing Dynasty

We walked a lot that day, mostly along the lake side

We took a seat whenever we saw a vacant bench to rest our tired feet.

And then we just continued walking....there were just too many different sights and scenes along the lakeside...

I felt very tired from all the walking and my dear daddy piggy-backed me hehe...

And we sat down again....

Watching the sunset on a bridge with a funny name - "Lingering Snow at Broken Bridge". 

Sunset already, time to hunt for dinner!

We went to a famous local restaurant and joined a massive queue of 81 people ahead of us. Crazy!! We waited 1 hour+ to be seated @-@

After the long wait, we got so hungry that we greedily over-ordered and ended up with 6 dishes... steamed Chinese yam (山药) with berry sauce, mashed tofu, salted egg pumpkin, yam with greens, grilled brinjal and baked fish. Food was not bad and the bill came to about RMB90 (less than RM50).

After dinner, we took a short stroll at a night market near our hotel before retiring for the day.