Hefang Street, Hangzhou
Located at the foot of Wushan Hill, Hefang Street is said to be one of the oldest in Hangzhou, with a history stretching back 800 years. The area has survived in some form as the city’s commercial centre throughout the many centuries since it was established, and even today, it is home to several century-old businesses. The Chinese medicine shop Hu Qing Yu Tang and the famous souvenir shop Wang Xingji Fans, established in 1875, can both be found here, as well as many traditional stores selling silks, handicrafts and the usual tourist-oriented knick knacks. There are read more »
Ten (alternative) Scenes of West Lake
Revered by emperors and inspiring poets for centuries, Hangzhou has long been considered one of the most beautiful destinations in all of China. Famed for its idyllic setting between lush green hills, rivers and canals, it has been one of the country’s most prosperous cities for much of the last 1000 years. “Above there is heaven,” the Chinese say. “Below there is Hangzhou”. Marco Polo even went so far as to describe the city as “the most beautiful and magnificent in the world” when he visited at the end of the 13th century, and if the number of visitors that read more »
The thing about travelling in China as a Westerner
The thing about travelling in China as a Westerner, as any Westerner that has travelled in China will know, is that at times it can feel like you are walking round with a neon sign above your head advertising your endlessly fascinating other-worldliness. Whispers of weiguoren, shouts of laowai, staring of various degrees of intensity depending upon where exactly in the country you happen to be, are an almost constant occurrence, threat, annoyance, or maybe even delight, depending upon your way of looking at things. Shanghai may be the only exception to this rule given its read more »
Anyone for Hangzhou?
Turns out Shanghai by 6am wasn’t such a wild exaggeration after all. The no-lights-on-the-bus situation meant that after sundown, and an hour or so spent trying to write in the dark, I was asleep by 9pm or thereabouts. It was then a night of sleeping and waking, sleeping and waking, in my too-short, too-narrow, upper-middle bunk, as we rocked and rolled our merry way east. It was like trying to sleep in a sledge … as it careered down a snowy hill … for nine hours straight … all the while dreaming of coaches rolling crash barriers, flaming wreckages and head-on collisions read more »
Shenzhen to Shanghai by bus
I’ve said it before, and if this were the search for the Higgs Boson we were talking about, we’d almost be at our five-sigma point by now, such is the level of inevitability. Because seemingly without fail, whenever I travel in China, the adventure begins pretty much as soon as I leave Hong Kong.
By “adventure” I mean well-laid plans unraveling almost immediately upon crossing the border. It happened last time when I was heading to Beijing. It happened not quite without a little oversight on read more »