September 23 (Wednesday) – Hangzhou and Tunxi

Hangzhou

Our local guide, Liyn, took us on a boat ride on West Lake…very large lake in Hangzhou that was surrounded by a lovely park.


















Next was a drive up into the nearby hills to visit a tea plantation (Mai Jai Wu). There were rows and rows of tea plants working their way up the hillsides everywhere. We saw a presentation about tea and they showed us the differences between spring, summer and fall green tea. The Chinese government apparently claims some portion of the spring tea crop for taxes as spring tea is the most valuable.













Hangzhou Album

Tunxi

After lunch Liyn ended her portion of the tour, Jeff left us to return to Shanghai and Mr. Yu drove us three hours to Tunxi, the gateway city to Huang Shan. Parts of the area we drove through were very mountainous and beautiful.
After dinner we took a walk down the “Old Street” in Tunxi that started just across from our hotel. The buildings looked quite old with shops on the ground level and living quarters above. The street ran for more than a kilometer. Most of the shops sold tea, wood carvings, ink stones and paint brushes, and art. These four types of stores must have accounted for 75% of the stores along the street. On the return we cut over to the river. The walls along the river were edged in lights as were the bridges.
 






















Tunxi Album