Rustic Charm I

In Dec 2012, the mother and I went on a 8D Jiangnan Tour around China. I turned 21 in August last year, and she gave me 3 different birthday gifts last year. One of which was my Redang trip in September and the last one, was this China trip during the end of December. I think people whom I'm close to know that I love nothing more than a good overseas trip as a gift more than anything else. 

It's hard to put into words the excitement I had for this trip, because it's been a long while since I last stepped foot into China, and it's been awhile since I've had a non-beach related holiday. The best part? The temperature was ranging from 8 Degrees Celsius to about -3 Degree for our entire trip and... I LOVE THE COLD. I'm not even kidding when I say I love the cold. You'll know why in the later posrs (part I and part III). #ithinkicanliveinafreezer

The lovely Hangzhou Westlake that i will never forget. See the thing about packaged tours is that it's over commercialised and they barely gave us ten minutes to stop by this lake. T'was extremely breathtaking, and the cold wind had almost completely numbed my face and my hands. Wished we had the time to visit the pagodas and temples within the lake. 西湖 is renowned to be a romantic place for couples to drop by together and a popular retreat for many of the famous poets in the past.

Mandatory touristy shot

And here we arrived at the Song Dynasty Town on the first night after our visit to the 西湖. I will never forget the cold when we stepped out of the tour bus. It was intense, I could barely withstand 5 minutes without putting on my gloves (stuffed with heat pack), or stuffing my hands in my pocket. It was madness having to juggle my camera and battling the cold because I could barely feel set the settings without removing my gloves. It was about 3 degrees that night and yes, I was only wearing shorts and very thin leggings. 

Mandatory touristy shot #2

Very very breathtaking at night. I love the whole atmosphere and how everything was made to look like the olden days China (which explains the name of the place).

Here, we watched the famous  The Legend of Romance show, which was a mega huge theatre that housed probably thousands of people. A pretty mind-blowing show that features many different scenes and stories where the backdrop could change in seconds. No pictures were allowed even though everyone stands up to sneakily snap a few shots. The show is based on a classical extract of Hangzhou to integrate into a variety show and reputed to be one of the three world popular shows.

That concluded our first night in Hangzhou, China. The only thing I hate about the cold? The bathing part. I almost died when I wanted to step out of the showers. I loved our Hangzhou hotel, but I can't really remember the name now. We spent the night with the rest of our tour members exploring some back alleys and engaged in cheap thrills! I had quite a bit of dirt cheap shopping that night and we bought quite a number of streetside snacks home for supper before retiring for the night. 

I was completely skeptical about this tour group (mom's idea) cause I completely hadn't expected to meet anyone of my age group to be in this tour. It seems like it would appeal to the old, and I was right. But unexpectedly, I've met really really nice people and made new friends on this trip. I'll touch on that in the later posts (: The cold made everything unbearable during the trip, bearable. I can't wait to share more on my trip!

Till the next post, xx.