Hangzhou and Westlake district

It always happens that taxi drivers tend to know where out hostel/hotel is situated. In the end they start asking, or like this time we need to talk to driver's cousin on the phone and try to explain - which didn't work. The best way is to have the hostel's phone number on a piece of paper and let the driver call to the staff at the accomodation.

Our hostel in Hangzhou cost us 2,50 euro each but the room was awful. The room was very humid, the water after taking a shower stayed floating, and the walls were covered with mold. Tiina and Suvi were coughing during the night times. It wasn't only our room but all the rooms had the same problem.

Hangzhou was very pretty. We had walks on the lake area and also on a hill where they cultivate tea. The walk on a hill took us 2 hours plus the time we had for lunch. We were walking just on a normal road so the walk wasn't too difficult though Suvi and Tiina didn't seem to enjoy so much and were swetting quite a lot. The lunch we had was one of the tasties I have had here. It was just some family-home-run restaurant in a village. I had a look in the kitchen to let them know what they could put in our food - they didn't speak English.

After coming down from the hill we visited tea museum. It wasn't too big but told all the necessary there is to know about tea. Incredible that traditions for tea have existed for at least 1700 years. What did we have in Finland at that time...

The Westlake district is one of the most popular tourist areas in China. Indeed the area is very beautiful. People come there to bike around, to fish, to sit in the sunset, to take a boat on a lake and there were even rowing and paddling practice going on.

I also made a 'new friend' at the hostel. A boy from the staff was saying all the time "Hello Erik" to me - even in every five minutes. Adam was cleaning my things (eg trash if I ate something) and being very helpful. He was calling me Erik cause first he thought I use the name Linda, I told him better but he might have heard wrong. It got annoying and luckily we didn't stay for longer time for him to have time to make his moves.

Erika