How's everyone getting along?

Things have been going pretty well on the Shanghai front. It's getting colder now, which is a nice change of pace from... never being cold. We experienced a bit of that back in February, but it'll be interesting to live in a cold climate for the first time in 8 years or so.

Speaking of, this (somewhat) shorter entry is about when I first came to China, in little old Hangzhou. Ella and I made a day trip out there over the weekend, the first time she's been. And the first time I've been back in, well, since I left. Oddly enough I first came to Hangzhou in November, so it's almost the 9 year anniversary since I left the US. I'll save the big reflections for next year, but I was curious to see if Hangzhou is the place I remember.

For the most part, yes. But better.

Back in my day (old man voice), living in Hangzhou was nice but sort of inconvenient. In other words, more convenient than almost everywhere in the US save NYC. Food delivery services hadn't taken off yet, there was no metro, and you had to put the public bikes in the docking stations. Now Hangzhou's metro is coming along nicely, with about 5 lines, the ever-ubiquitous-in-China dockless bikes, Didi, etc.. Plus now I actually know some Chinese, and with Ella in tow. But before that, let's do a little "before and after", separated by almost exactly 9 years.

So. Thoughts. In the first pic I look kinda fat. I blame that on leaving America about 1 month prior, and the couple of layers of clothing. But still - better now. The second pic is big improvement since Ella is in it. But also, my hair! Oh man. Low maintenance for sure, but nah, that's too short. I don't think I want to do that again.

Now, on to the more famous sights in the city. So the first destination was one I can actually name now, Hefang Street. Hefang Street was where the bus from my little district of Xiaoshan terminated, so it was the jumping off point for all of my Hangzhou excursions, back in the day. Well I'm pleased to say, it's same same but different. The biggest thing is that they cleaned it up a bit. For example, the food street I was looking for was just a series of carts on the sides of the alley, with communal tables in the middle. Now Singapore style, they've moved them into a covered building, like a hawker center. I get why, I suppose. But I miss the ambiance of rubbing shoulders with a random stranger, chowing down on bamboo rice and xiao long bao. But it was a nice intro to Hangzhou, because it still is quite pretty, and one of those places you can sort of get lost in.

The next spot was a place I had never been before, Hu Xueyan's home. I'm not expecting anyone to know who that is - I didn't. But basically he was a super rich guy, who, I gotta say, has a pretty nice taste in making a Chinese home. It's what you'd expect from a rich Chinese dude, with lots of courtyards, ponds, fancy woodwork, etc.. But what I did like is that he had a lot of caves in and around, which even on a temperate day were a good few degrees cooler than outside. I can see these being super nice to have during the summer, and were just cool to explore.

Then we get to the star of the show, Leifang Tower. I really like Leifang. Even though it's a modern reconstruction of the original (which collapsed around 1920 or so?) it's quite pretty and has a great view of West Lake. At a fraction of the price and a better view compared to Wuhan's Huanghe Tower, it's really the way to go for your Chinese tower experience. I remember years ago, standing at the top of that tower, looking at the islands in West Lake, and thinking "I wonder how you get there?" And then giving up because I spoke no Chinese and the English resources available were hard to come by and outdated.

Well, I'm happy to say this time we did make it to the largest of the islands, Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon. Yes, that's the name. Also there are 4 ponds. I don't get it either. If you don't believe me, I present Exhibit A:

Sure looks like four to me. Maybe they mean the lantern things.

Anyway, there's not much to do on that island. It's a pretty place to walk around, what with all the ponds full of koi fish, large lillypads, and bridges. The main draw though, is the southern view which is what's on the back of the 1 yuan note. You can see how mine compares.

After that, we wanted to go to a tea plantation. I had been there before (I think?), but it was honestly getting too late in the day. Instead we opted to go downtown to get some food, and maybe check out a night market nearby. The night market was pretty forgettable, selling the same sort of phone cases, clothing, etc.. We stopped at a restaurant nearby though, and I had tomato bamboo noodles - definitely the meal highlight of the trip, they were amazing. After another train ride back, we didn't get home until around 11 o'clock. An exhausting, busy day for sure, but we'll definitely be back to Hangzhou. Now that the big tourist stuff is taken care of, there's a couple of friends still around that I need to catch up with.