Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

We arrived in Hangzhou early this morning after a completely successful first long distance bus experience. The bus station was much easier and cleaner to navigate than any of the train stations we had been in and we quickly bought our ticket and hopped on the bus.

After a couple of hours on the bus we pulled into Hangzhou. The directions for this hostel were just as bad as the last so to avoid another terrible morning we quickly grabbed a cab. It turns out our hostel was about 15km away so it’s a good thing we took a taxi.

I have to admit that Hangzhou is beautiful. The buildings look new and well maintained and the city has a distinct western feel to it. Jacob and I both think it looks and feels similar to New England as opposed to China. There is a huge lake in the middle of the city surrounded by beautiful parks and green spaces. We only caught a glimpse of them today in the bus and in the taxi but will be exploring more tomorrow.

Our hostel is set part way up a mountain in a fairly secluded location. You can see a temple in the distance on top of the mountain in one direction and terraced tea plantations in the other. The hostel is also located just next to the Hangzhou Zoo. We’ve been really wanting to see some pandas while in China but had heard that the Beijing zoo wasn’t that great. Seeing as the rest if Hangzhou is a beautiful garden we assumed the zoo would be much the same. Always a mistake in Asia.

The zoo grounds were lovely with huge trees and grass buy all of the animals were kept in small pens outside of the green spaces. While the panda was really cute it wasn’t the setting I had been hoping for.

Tomorrow should be a relaxing day of enjoying a couple of the parks. We are both getting tired of moving around so frequently and want to take a break before we hit Shanghai.