Paradise on earth
The ancient saying is "There is a paradise in the heaven, and down on earth there are Suzhou and Hangzhou."
Hangzhou was the first stop in my China visit. My husband works there so it was the logical place to start. After arriving and depositing my suitcase in Tim's studio apartment, we walked to a nearby restaurant and I had my first of many Chinese meals - steamed fish, vegetables and noodles. The area is new and the streets are wide, tree lined, clean with few people around. We stopped at the company Tim's working for. The building is only two years old and rivals any of our office buildings, with a large welcoming lobby, efficient work stations, a beautiful cafeteria and attention paid to ergonomics. It is representative of the new China. Hangzhou was named the number one business city in China by Forbes Magazine.
Tim's apartment is part of a hotel so after dinner we enjoyed a foot massage offered in the hotel area. What a treat!
Sunday was a full day devoted to touring the city and surrounding areas. The Li'en Temple was the first stop. Zhifeng, a Buddhist, tamed a tiger that was attacking the people in the area. He earned the name, Abbot Tiger Tamer. A king from the Wuyue Kingdom built the temple for Zhifeng. The area was beautiful with many hiking trails and creeks. We hiked up the hillside after visiting the temple and found a well traveled road. We waited for the bus and then decided it wasn't going where we wanted to go. Even the Chinese were having trouble figuring out which bus to take. A taxi was the safer way to go provided you can speak Chinese.
Our next stop was the tea fields for tea and lunch. I had never seen tea growing before.
Camellia sinensis is an evergreen plant. Only the top 1-2 inches of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are called flushes, and a plant will grow a new flush every seven to ten days during the growing season. Tea plants will grow into a tree if left undisturbed but cultivated plants are pruned to waist height for ease of plucking. The tea is picked one leaf at a time. Green tea is the most common tea in China. For green tea the oxidation process is stopped after a minimal amount of oxidation by application of heat, either with steam or by dry cooking in hot pans, the traditional Chinese method.
The tea house was a small house amidst a cluster of other tea houses surrounded by tea fields. We picked our lunch out by pointing at some fresh vegetables and a chicken. It was a pleasant lunch.
The remainder of the day was spent touring the city. We drove through Zhejiang University, a larger modern campus. Dinner was at a restaurant on beautiful West Lake.
I was ready for bed after a full day.
Tomorrow we are off to Guilin.
Hangzhou was the first stop in my China visit. My husband works there so it was the logical place to start. After arriving and depositing my suitcase in Tim's studio apartment, we walked to a nearby restaurant and I had my first of many Chinese meals - steamed fish, vegetables and noodles. The area is new and the streets are wide, tree lined, clean with few people around. We stopped at the company Tim's working for. The building is only two years old and rivals any of our office buildings, with a large welcoming lobby, efficient work stations, a beautiful cafeteria and attention paid to ergonomics. It is representative of the new China. Hangzhou was named the number one business city in China by Forbes Magazine.
Tim's apartment is part of a hotel so after dinner we enjoyed a foot massage offered in the hotel area. What a treat!
Sunday was a full day devoted to touring the city and surrounding areas. The Li'en Temple was the first stop. Zhifeng, a Buddhist, tamed a tiger that was attacking the people in the area. He earned the name, Abbot Tiger Tamer. A king from the Wuyue Kingdom built the temple for Zhifeng. The area was beautiful with many hiking trails and creeks. We hiked up the hillside after visiting the temple and found a well traveled road. We waited for the bus and then decided it wasn't going where we wanted to go. Even the Chinese were having trouble figuring out which bus to take. A taxi was the safer way to go provided you can speak Chinese.
Our next stop was the tea fields for tea and lunch. I had never seen tea growing before.
Camellia sinensis is an evergreen plant. Only the top 1-2 inches of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are called flushes, and a plant will grow a new flush every seven to ten days during the growing season. Tea plants will grow into a tree if left undisturbed but cultivated plants are pruned to waist height for ease of plucking. The tea is picked one leaf at a time. Green tea is the most common tea in China. For green tea the oxidation process is stopped after a minimal amount of oxidation by application of heat, either with steam or by dry cooking in hot pans, the traditional Chinese method.
The tea house was a small house amidst a cluster of other tea houses surrounded by tea fields. We picked our lunch out by pointing at some fresh vegetables and a chicken. It was a pleasant lunch.
The remainder of the day was spent touring the city. We drove through Zhejiang University, a larger modern campus. Dinner was at a restaurant on beautiful West Lake.
I was ready for bed after a full day.
Tomorrow we are off to Guilin.
posted by Lady-and-The-Sea at 9:14 PM
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