Our trip to Hangzhou and latest news

Last week we had a fabulous trip to Hangzhou, an old city 120 miles or so from Shanghai.
Hangzhou is very famous in China - it has a wonderful lake dotted with temples and pagodas - here is a dragon boat on the lake.

 We sat in the evening and watched the sunset over the lake. Later, fountains appeared in the lake with colored lights and music - very pretty and romantic.

 There are many parks and gardens around the lake, and it was very pleasant strolling around and sitting and watching the world go by. We stayed in a small hostel next to one of the big temples and pagodas, but now, feeling a bit templed out, we decided not to visit.

However, we did visit the old part of the city too - many tourists there, but one street is famous for the many Chinese medicine stores along it - some very old. Here is one of them, still busy and widely used by the locals.

One of the exciting parts of the trip was riding a bullet train to and from Hangzhou - the tickets cost a little more, but it was very cool to ride in a super-fast train - up to 200 mph (displayed inside the carriage) - in fact we covered the distance in about 45 minutes!

 Other news - work remains fine. Spent this weekend in Shanghai - today we went to a holy mountain - She Shan (topped with a Catholic monastery!) and yesterday wandered the riverfront at night. Andy went out with some of his students the other night - real Chinese food (frog, bamboo, goose, fungus and strange eggs ...) and another go at karaokee.
We have also booked a weekend trip (and another bullet train) to Nanjing - at one time, the CHinese capital and site of the massacre in WW 2. We have also booked a longer trip in July (a week's vacation) - to spend 4 nights in mid-west China - Chengdu - home of the pandas! and a further 5 nights in southern China - 3 in Guilin (famous mountains/river) and 2 in the Dragon's Backbone rice terraces in a village.
We plan to take some pictures at work to share. Hoping to have some visitors soon.