West Lake & Plum Blossoms

(Heather)

My apologies to those of you reading this blog post—there’s no creative title this time round. There’s a reason for this, however. You see, as a group we spent Saturday at the infamous West Lake in Hangzhou, and on Sunday I had the opportunity to see the stunningly lovely peach and plum blossoms at the Hangzhou Botanical Gardens. As everything I’ve seen over the past two days has been so, well, just so lovely, I feel that trying to force creativity or compose a saccharine metaphor would inevitably fall flat and detract from the actual beauty of what we’ve (I’ve!) seen.

As the first week in Hangzhou came to a close, I think all of us were excited to finally see the much lauded and esteemed West Lake. Thus, we met our guides on Saturday morning with eager anticipation, and climbed into (yet another) van for the quick trip to the West Lake area, which, if not obvious, is in the western part of Hangzhou. We started at the six harmonies pagoda, which is a Buddhist masterpiece, and situated in a lovely green space. According to legend, as you ascend the pagoda (which, unfortunately, we couldn’t due to renovations), you gain harmony of body, then mind, then spirit, etc. Nearby the pagoda is Tiger Spring, which is another scenic area around West Lake, and the ideal spot, according to locals, for fresh, clean, clear, springwater. Indeed, there were dozens of locals lined up with their empty plastic jugs and barrels, waiting for their turn to fill from the spring. We spent some time in this area, enjoying the hills, views, water, and natural landscape, and learning about more local lore and legends from our guide—the Tiger Spring legend involves a monk and, unsurprisingly, tigers—before an expansive buffet lunch. (Side note: Dareus and Timmy are bottomless pits. Buffet owners, beware!)

After lunch we approached the shores of the actual lake, which looks small upon first glance and entry, but opens up dramatically as you begin to walk around the perimeter. We spent several hours in the West Lake area, which included leisurely strolling, an hour long cruise on a pleasure boat, and time soaking in the bird’s eye views from the Leifeng pagoda, central to the Chinese legend of the beautiful but unlucky Lady White Snake and her human lover. Suffice it to say, the area in general is lovely, and clearly merits the huge crowds from all over China that pour into Hangzhou. I can also understand why—as referenced by our guide—hundreds of couples will have wedding photos taken at the lake every weekend through the spring, summer, and fall. I look forward to returning to West Lake over the course of the next month to see the season begin to shift and change, and to view the area at sunrise, sunset, and in between.

While I’m not sure what all the individual kiddos were up to today—they’re all off with their host families—I was fortunate enough to spend the day with Didi (one of the girls from Hangzhou who visited DS last year) and her mother. Both were incredibly kind, and took me out and around for the better part of the day, showing me the billowing and fragrant swaths of blooming peach and plum trees in the Hangzhou Botanical Gardens, and deciphering the menu at lunch. (By deciphering, I mean ordering—I’m reasonably certain that left to my own devices, I would have ended up with plates full of who-knows-what… mushrooms, probably, because I despise them). Didi is planning on attending school in the states next year, and is waiting on a few more schools before making a final decision. Tulane and Purdue are in the running, as they should be, since her English language skills are so impressive.

As the day wound down I bicycled to the local bookstore (it has a small English language section) and the supermarket. Visiting the latter, I’ll assure you, is an experience that provides instant sensory overload. The supermarket is crowded, huge, loud, bright, noisy, smelly, shiny, clean, dirty, logical and confusing all at once—a true paradox, though my inability to read all but approximately twenty Chinese characters doesn’t help the confusion! There are multiple floors, each one devoted to produce, packaged goods, clothing, household needs, etc. The first floor, devoted to meat, dairy, and produce, has profuse amounts of every vegetable you could imagine, located in immediate proximity to open tanks with fish swimming about, broad expanses of clams, mussels, shrimp and other shellfish, bins of chicken feet and partitioned intestine, and clotheslined, defeathered chickens and ducks (including black skinned ones!). Other floors have intricately looped and swirled frosted pastries, pristinely folded bath towels and gleaming, high-end makeup counters, and counters full of herbs, mushrooms, dried flowers, and ???? to be used for tea and in TCM ( traditional Chinese medicine). No, those question marks aren’t typos or memory lapses on my part—I have absolutely no idea what was in some of those bins. I couldn’t even begin to guess. Some were fuzzy.

So I bought the kleenex, soap, shampoo that I came for, added a few Snickers bars (hooray for universally recognizable labels and the ever-encroaching spread of Western consumerism!), and bicycled back to the apartment, past the rows of noodle joints and silk shops.

Cheers!