Xi Hu

Better rested this morning from a proper bed! We only had one site and no travel for today, so we figured we'd take it much easier. Hoped to find a cafe and hang out/work for a bit, but they proved difficult to find and/or expensive, so we quickly abandoned that idea.

In the end we just had a quick bite for lunch at a restaurant next door, then did a bit of shopping at the large malls nearby. Around early afternoon we headed over to West Lake, the main reason for visiting Hangzhou. It's apparently one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, attracting tens of millions of people every year - almost all of them domestic Chinese tourists.

It's been a famous landscape in Chinese art for centuries, so a lot of people come here to see it for themselves. It's quite a large lake, about 11km in circumference, lined with various trees, temples, and other bits and pieces. We started walking around but realised within an hour or so that completing a full loop was a bit optimistic!

But it was still quite nice. There's 10 key scenic spots dotted around the lake with atmospheric names like "Winter Mist From the Bridge" and "Taifeng Pavilion at Sunset" and so on. We tried to pick out most of these and were largely successful, though the large stone pillar at each tends to be a giveaway!

We also took a boat ride out to an island in the centre which was quite nice, though very crowded. By the time we finished it was quite dark, so we walked back to our hotel. I was in agony now because I'd stupidly worn thongs rather than shoes, and had given myself huge blisters around the thong straps since I wasn't used to wearing them. Ow.

Grabbed a quick dinner at a burger place around the corner from the hotel, as we were both getting over Chinese food. My burger was fantastic, it was called the Elvis and was topped with peanut butter, fried banana and bacon.Read more