China Trip Part 7: Leifeng Pagoda and the Food of Hangzhou

A view of the West Lake and Leifeng Pagoda.

Lunch everyday was mediocre. You don't have a lot of time to savor a meal and the meal wan't something that was worth savoring over. The food was basically something to give ourselves energy and to fill our stomachs. Since it is already covered by our trip, you gotta enjoy the most out of it. We were separated into different seating groups to keep everyone organized during the remainder of the trip. We got put in a group of northern Chinese to our disappointment, because we actually wanted to hang with the Cantonese speaking families. I think it's because our facial features didn't resemble the typical southern Chinese even though I can assure you that for over 100 years, my ancestors resided in southern China.

Each table would always have two beers and I would never be able to get myself a bottle ('cause the two men in our table always got there first. It's alright I don't hold a grudge against them anyways). Our first lunch was pretty bad in my opinion. I don't remember what we had, but I remember it being very sloppy and MSG heavy. After lunch, we were on a four hour bus ride to Hangzhou. During this time, many of the passengers used it to catch up on sleep. A lot of the members came to Shanghai straight from the country they came from and jet lag hit them very hard. During this time, Mr. X also thought it was a good idea to give a big speech on important details to know about the trip. Quite honestly, most of the information was already explained in the itinerary when I bought the plane tickets, so I went straight to sleep. I took a short video of the bus ride and sent it to my friend via Wechat. It was near midnight back home, so the both of us had a short conversation.

The fish at the restaurant lobby.

Phone quality (left)  Camera quality (right)

We ended our day with the Leifeng Pagoda. At each city we visit, a local guide is organized. Our Hangzhou local guide was Mr. H who often liked to speak slowly and poetically. He even said we could call him little H to which my mom blurted out, "You're not little anymore!" (And some of us agreed immediately.) It was already a tiring day. Typically I would be excited to explore pagodas, but today was not the day. We had only 40 minutes to explore and there was no way you could look through the entire pagoda in 40 minutes. There were so many carvings and paintings meant to be appreciated. There was a huge ass line to the elevator and we were done waiting.

 

The ceilings in one of the rooms.

We went straight up the stairs and decided to start from the top. It's five stories high so it's doable. When we looked down, we saw that it was nothing special. Just lots of greenery and haze. I was sweating like crazy and snapping pictures as quick as possible. When we made our way down to regroup, we were then taken to the famed West Lake to snap some more pictures. I took note of the stone carvings on the ground than the lake itself.

Compared to Shanghai so far, Hangzhou was so much more interesting. At night, the streets had so many shops open along with the smell of stinky tofu. I found that a lot of people in China like to eat stinky tofu. That night for dinner, we were promised a "delectable Hangzhou local specialty", Hangzhou beggar's chicken and vinegar fish. Vinegar fish is actual quite popular throughout the Jiangsu and Zhejiang area as both areas share similar cultures. That beggar's chicken was terrible and I know that it was a bad representation of Hangzhou cuisine. It was dry and there was barely anything to eat. The vinegar fish if I remember correctly was way too acidic. If done well, the gravy should be a in good balance. The fish is fried and then doused in sauce. Hangzhou is also famous for Dong Po Rou, braised pork invented by an man named Su Dong Po. The dong po rou we were served was nothing compared to the one we had the night before in Shanghai. I think we had Long Jing Xia, Shrimp cooked with Dragon Well Tea, for lunch the next day, but I'll write about it here anyways. They tasted like your normal fried shrimp, ok. No one is going to give you expensive Dragonwell Tea to cook in. Even I wouldn't do it.

After dinner, we were taken to a theater not far from where we ate. There was a show called A Night of Hangzhou which condenses the history and culture of Hangzhou into one spectacular. It was quite a rewarding experience. It combines dance, martial arts, music, acrobatics, stunts, and motorcycles into one show. That's right, motorcycles. When we arrived at the theater, we were already late. The show had already began and what's worse was that it was full. Mr. H practically flipped out when he saw there were no seats for any of us to watch the show. What was going on? It appeared that there was a lack of communication about the number of seats that was suppose to be reserved. I got separated, but it didn't matter since none of us were able to stick together. The show was also a play combining a lot of stories. There was the famous Buttlerfly Lovers story told in the form of a dance. When telling us about the origin of Dragonwell tea, we had performers singing in colorful costumes. We literally had acrobats dangling above our heads and there were so many times we thought they would crash down on to the audience. The two acrobats were spinning and stretching and flying in the air. The final show was the motorcycles and Mr. X led us all out before the show ended. We couldn't even applaud. He said that the exhaust from the motorcycles was too much so he rather us leave, which I can actually agree on. The only thing this show was missing to be crazier was pyrotechnics and live animals.

That night we stayed at the luxurious Meiziqing Hotel which was ten times better than the Howard Johnson Hotel we stayed at previously. Our floors were cleaner and we had new equipment to use. Our breakfast that morning was also pretty good. WiFi was very strong in our room and I used it to my pleasure. If you guys ever get to travel Hangzhou, check out the streets at night. Hangzhou is also very clean and there's a lot of newly planted trees due to urban planning.