Hangzhou Trip (May 1-2) Day 1
May. 4th, 2009 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormy1x2Ah... to post the good, the bad, the ugly.... god, I've missed regularly blogging on LJ. DW is like a dream come true, especially with the x-posting option.
Anyway, the Hangzhou trip as both a good thing and a bad thing for. Suffice it to say, when you are only a week recovered from a 3-week bout with severe pneumonia (and still on meds for it), it goes without saying proper sleep is a must. The stress of planning the demo, working full-time, doing 4 Open Classes back-to-back on Wednesday, traveling to Lin'An and doing a nerve-wracking demo and getting back at nearly midnight - and then getting up a mere five hours later to start a vacation is NOT a smart thing to do. I was fine for most of the day, but a 3 hour trip to AnJi county turned into 5, and lunch was greasy and heavy - instant sickness. I pulled it together to do some things that afternoon, but I wound up going ahead of the group to the hotel to collapse, missing out on the filming site of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' as well as dinner. But at least the sacrifice helped - I got over 10 hours of sleep and woke up feeling so much better, so Saturday went a lot better (even though my phone was swiped in Hangzhou, the bastards).
Anyway, on to the pics!
On to the bus! Hi H!
First pit stop, 2 hours into the bus ride. Naturally, the smokers were dying:
Some fool put me in charge of the flag. YAY! POWER!
Emma modeling the snazzy tour hats!
The hotel we had lunch at was boring, but the temple across the road looked interesting:
Food porn pics! Fatty pork, a popular egg-and-tomato dish, beef with peppers (which 3 of us bit into sadly thinking they were green beans) and tender bambo shoots.
On to the Bamboo forest, filming site of 'The Banquet':
Little pagoda off to the side of the forest:
There are 9 pillars all carved with dragons to represent the emporer. The detail in the etchings were amazing:
Cute little paths leading to the filming site. Ron, Emma and I kept hanging back to take pics and we kept getting admonished by our group leaders about getting lost or falling behind. I figure it was pretty hard to miss the sea of Western people all wearing blindingly bright white hats, but what do I know?
Close-up of the bamboo. These guys were about 5 years old. Bamboo grows FAST.
The set built exclusively for filming the movie 'The Banquet'. The entire structure is made entirely out of bamboo, right down to the twine lashing the whole thing tightly together. It was amazing:
More little bridges and paths across little rivers:
A peacock enclosure. The males are the brightly colored ones, the females have the duller coloring:
For a small price, you could throw yourself into a giant bubble and try to navigate the river.
These two little girls had... well, a BALL.
An interesting natural rock formation. Picture two is a close-up.
Now, despite the hoards crossing (and the ones you can see in the buildng) there were dozens of people who refused to cross that bamboo brdge. It creaked and crackled and outright SNAPPED in places, and no one was in the mood for a swim in that water. >.<;;
Close up of the lily pads:
Thistles!
Now THIS is a bamboo forest:
Ron and I both had the same idea - 'Quick, take a pic while there's no one around!' Not two seconds later, another group of tourists came trouping around the bend. :D
From the bus we kept seeing these neatly lined up haystacks everywhere, bright white-gold in color and so pretty compared to normal haystacks. This pic, shot through the bus window, does not do the colors justice:
From the official bamboo park in Lin'An, we traveled through AnJi country to the Bamboo Museum/Park combo. Here, see a peacock made entirely out of bamboo:
Not impressed? Well, let's get some perspective in here - some people, to show you how big it actually is. ^^
Emma said I needed a pic of the 'snazzy hats' too.
Big statue. Any Chinese readers out there can tell me who this is, or at least what the writing says?
Pretty purple and red flowers:
Not quite sure what this is but it's made of bamboo and looks interesting:
A pretty little path going off in the distance:
Another path in the other direction:
I liked this tree. I want to put one in my mom's mini-forest in her backyard:
Tree close-up:
Park speakers shaped like pandas. Hallen (my g5 student) collects pictures of bears (her favorite animal) be they toys, real or pics of bear pics AND she has a blue-tooth phone. I must remember to send her this::
Giant rock carvings:
This is definitely one of the coolest looking little shops I've ever seen:
More giant relief carvings:
This bamboo is famous (and items made from it more expensive) because of the natural coloring:
Wanna buy a tree?
I did not like seeing birds chained to their perches, and I did not pay for anything re: the so-called Bird Show - but I could not deny they were beautiful animals:
Heading to the panda enclosure and bamboo playground...
....I got to meet and play with this little guy!
First glimpse of the bamboo playground:
H gave it a try! As did Owen, and Je! I did not, as this was the time the whole week began catching up to me, and dizziness and nausea began taking hold.
Here there be pandas!
Happy panda, followed immediately by sleepy panda. ^_^
Everyone needs a panda of their very own. :D
Unfortunately, my first day comes to a close here, 'cause I was out of it for the next hour drive to Lin'An and the site of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'. I couldn't even stand up to get off the bus.
Tomorrow I'll post day two with pics of Hangzhou. ^__^
Anyway, the Hangzhou trip as both a good thing and a bad thing for. Suffice it to say, when you are only a week recovered from a 3-week bout with severe pneumonia (and still on meds for it), it goes without saying proper sleep is a must. The stress of planning the demo, working full-time, doing 4 Open Classes back-to-back on Wednesday, traveling to Lin'An and doing a nerve-wracking demo and getting back at nearly midnight - and then getting up a mere five hours later to start a vacation is NOT a smart thing to do. I was fine for most of the day, but a 3 hour trip to AnJi county turned into 5, and lunch was greasy and heavy - instant sickness. I pulled it together to do some things that afternoon, but I wound up going ahead of the group to the hotel to collapse, missing out on the filming site of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' as well as dinner. But at least the sacrifice helped - I got over 10 hours of sleep and woke up feeling so much better, so Saturday went a lot better (even though my phone was swiped in Hangzhou, the bastards).
Anyway, on to the pics!
On to the bus! Hi H!
First pit stop, 2 hours into the bus ride. Naturally, the smokers were dying:
Some fool put me in charge of the flag. YAY! POWER!
Emma modeling the snazzy tour hats!
The hotel we had lunch at was boring, but the temple across the road looked interesting:
Food porn pics! Fatty pork, a popular egg-and-tomato dish, beef with peppers (which 3 of us bit into sadly thinking they were green beans) and tender bambo shoots.
On to the Bamboo forest, filming site of 'The Banquet':
Little pagoda off to the side of the forest:
There are 9 pillars all carved with dragons to represent the emporer. The detail in the etchings were amazing:
Cute little paths leading to the filming site. Ron, Emma and I kept hanging back to take pics and we kept getting admonished by our group leaders about getting lost or falling behind. I figure it was pretty hard to miss the sea of Western people all wearing blindingly bright white hats, but what do I know?
Close-up of the bamboo. These guys were about 5 years old. Bamboo grows FAST.
The set built exclusively for filming the movie 'The Banquet'. The entire structure is made entirely out of bamboo, right down to the twine lashing the whole thing tightly together. It was amazing:
More little bridges and paths across little rivers:
A peacock enclosure. The males are the brightly colored ones, the females have the duller coloring:
For a small price, you could throw yourself into a giant bubble and try to navigate the river.
These two little girls had... well, a BALL.
An interesting natural rock formation. Picture two is a close-up.
Now, despite the hoards crossing (and the ones you can see in the buildng) there were dozens of people who refused to cross that bamboo brdge. It creaked and crackled and outright SNAPPED in places, and no one was in the mood for a swim in that water. >.<;;
Close up of the lily pads:
Thistles!
Now THIS is a bamboo forest:
Ron and I both had the same idea - 'Quick, take a pic while there's no one around!' Not two seconds later, another group of tourists came trouping around the bend. :D
From the bus we kept seeing these neatly lined up haystacks everywhere, bright white-gold in color and so pretty compared to normal haystacks. This pic, shot through the bus window, does not do the colors justice:
From the official bamboo park in Lin'An, we traveled through AnJi country to the Bamboo Museum/Park combo. Here, see a peacock made entirely out of bamboo:
Not impressed? Well, let's get some perspective in here - some people, to show you how big it actually is. ^^
Emma said I needed a pic of the 'snazzy hats' too.
Big statue. Any Chinese readers out there can tell me who this is, or at least what the writing says?
Pretty purple and red flowers:
Not quite sure what this is but it's made of bamboo and looks interesting:
A pretty little path going off in the distance:
Another path in the other direction:
I liked this tree. I want to put one in my mom's mini-forest in her backyard:
Tree close-up:
Park speakers shaped like pandas. Hallen (my g5 student) collects pictures of bears (her favorite animal) be they toys, real or pics of bear pics AND she has a blue-tooth phone. I must remember to send her this::
Giant rock carvings:
This is definitely one of the coolest looking little shops I've ever seen:
More giant relief carvings:
This bamboo is famous (and items made from it more expensive) because of the natural coloring:
Wanna buy a tree?
I did not like seeing birds chained to their perches, and I did not pay for anything re: the so-called Bird Show - but I could not deny they were beautiful animals:
Heading to the panda enclosure and bamboo playground...
....I got to meet and play with this little guy!
First glimpse of the bamboo playground:
H gave it a try! As did Owen, and Je! I did not, as this was the time the whole week began catching up to me, and dizziness and nausea began taking hold.
Here there be pandas!
Happy panda, followed immediately by sleepy panda. ^_^
Everyone needs a panda of their very own. :D
Unfortunately, my first day comes to a close here, 'cause I was out of it for the next hour drive to Lin'An and the site of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'. I couldn't even stand up to get off the bus.
Tomorrow I'll post day two with pics of Hangzhou. ^__^
