Trip to Hangzhou City and Xitang Village

During the Chinese May day holiday I traveled with the BYU China Teachers group to the cities of Hangzhou (hang joe) and Suzhou (Sue joe), and the ancient Yangtze River delta village of Xitang (she tang).  This area is the Venice of the Orient because of the myriad canals and rivers criss-crossing the cities and the countryside in general.

The first two days were spend in Hangzhou and Xitang.  The following pictures are from visits to those two places.  I'll talk about the visit to Suzhou in a separate blog.

Hangzhou's streets and canals are lined with trees and flowers.  The architecture is distinctive.

Stone and cement block arched bridges are everywhere throughout the city.

Many Chinese stroll along the banks of the canals and rivers.

This canal is the moat of the ancient city of Hangzhou.  You can see one of the only remaining segments of the old city wall behind me across the moat.  The Chinese temple-like structure is the old city gate in that segment of the old wall.

View from on top of the old city wall.

Along the waterfront of West Lake there was a Las Vegas style music, light and fountain show.  Just above the jets of water you can see one of the temples on a hill overlooking West Lake.  West Lake has been apart of Chinese legends and lore for over 2000 years.  It is the most popular destination for China's romantically inclined.  Hangzhou and Suzhou according to Chinese folklore were created as the closest things to being in Heaven in China....even in their ancient poetry.

Tour boats for sailing on West Lake.  We didn't ride on the Dragon boat in the picture.

There are many parks, paths and bridges that connect the myriad small islands along the east side of West Lake.  Many gardens decorate the islands.  So although it was a busy tourist time there was plenty of room.  You didn't feel crowded.

Did I mention there were many scenic bridges?

Outside of the city enroute to the village of Xitang were many small rural areas with these homes.  I haven't seen this style of housing in rural China.  Obviously the farmers that live in these rural homes are wealthy.  In fact, the spires with the 3 spheres on them is representative of the amount of money the owner has....an open boast of their wealth.  The small ball is a half million chinese dollars, the next size up is one million, and the big ball is 2 million.  So these owners have more than 3.5 million dollars which is about a half million US.

The village of Xitang had narrow alleys and many sizes of canals.  There has been a village at this site for  well over 1300 years.  There are 104 bridges in the town the oldest of which was built over 1000 years ago.