Hangzhou, China

On Saturday May 14th, Adam and I headed out of town to the popular "get-outta-town" destination of Hangzhou.  A small town of about $4M people with a beautiful destination called West Lake or Xi Hu.  Its only about an hour away by train.  So we grabbed some baozi and coffee and jumped on the metro line 2 to Hongqaio Train Station.

Adam and I on the train to Hangzhou

Going about 200 mph!

Scenery out the train window

Hangzhou has one of the largest public bicycle sharing systems in the world. You have to put down about 300RMB but then can rent the bikes to ride around the city and lake.  If you return the bike within 1 hour its free!  It was quite a challenge to find the public transport station to get the bike rental cards, but we finally found it as you can see below!

Trees lining the lake

One of the long causeways on the lake

After walking around the lake for several hours, we finally made it to Lou Wan Lou.  I had read about this place on the web and confirmed that it served the Hangzhou specialty of Beggar's Chicken.  It was about 2pm in the afternoon, so we walked right in and got a great table.  It was a little overcast, but we enjoyed the food!

Chinese coke and beer

Beggar's Chicken

Adam actually eating vegetables!

our lunch looking over Xi Hu

Our afternoon!

Finally... a picture of me! 

The beautiful scenery

Adam on the bike - we didn't actually like it too much, pretty stressful on the roads

The sun shining us

I snapped a shot of these cute twins as the sun was setting

A sweet family taking pictures near the lake

This group asked to take pictures with us!

the sun setting in Hangzhou