Back Home After beautiful country interlude

Thursday 25 September Hangzhou
Next day was fairly busy and the weather was very hot and humid . We first visited the LIngyin Temple, built in 327AD. The gold-gilded, seated Buddha in the main hall is 24.8m high, apparently the largest wood-carving of a seated buddha in China - each ear is over 1m high. The hall was extremely full of people and monks chanting and banging the gong, with a very heady aroma of burning incense. ! The area around the temple is known as Felai Feng and has many stone statues carved into the mountainside. The paths and caves could be quite dark and slippery, but fascinating to see the carvings in and around the hill in all sorts of nooks and crannies.
Then we drove out to the hills to visit the Dragon Well Tea Plantation, one of the most well-known green tea brands in China - drunk by emperors through the ages. The plantation area looks quite prosperous - apparently tea farmers are some of the wealthiest people in China. We were given a tea drinking demonstration and then had to walk through the very expensive shop to get back to the coach.
After lunch we went to the Six Harmonies Pagoda, dedicated to the six codes of Buddhism. It was once used as a lighthouse and was thought to have mystical powers to stop the tidal bore which heads up the nearby Qiantong River. We found a lovely garden with a pond and stepping stones, so had a rest from the noise and people.
We took a cruise on the West Lake in the afternoon, after a walk through the gardens. The gardens were lovely, very well-kept and interesting plants. The cruise itself was a relief as the weather was really oppressive.
Friday 26 September
Drove 2 hours this morning before arriving in Wuzhen, a lovely old-world water canal town on the way back to Shanghai. We wandered through the old streets and buildings, the town being like a living museum where people still live and work and produce the old products such as rice wine and dyed calico. Another interesting exercise in extremes when you look into the houses which have centuries old facades, lino on the floor and plasma screen cable TV inside! Visited a rice wine distillery and a calico dying plant, Lunch was in a canal-side restaurant and featured much more local-style food, which was more authentic with pig’s trotter wrapped in banana leaf and local fish.
After lunch we traveled back to Shanghai to the same hotel – it all seemed very familiar. Dinner was at another hotel restaurant The Restaurant Of Many White Faces, which is always a worry. While the food is well cooked and fresh ingredients sometimes it is very like the standard Aussie Chinese-lemon chicken

Saturday 27th Sept –
Grand final day. (We heard the result late in the afternoon.) We started the day on the Bund, where we came last Sunday but the haze has blown away and there are blue skies at last. Then to the obligatory highrise view from the Oriental Pearl Tower, but the bonus was an excellent Shanghai History Museum, very new and well presented. In the afternoon the Old Town and the Yu Garden.
Yuyuan Garden is a famous classical garden, occupying about 5 acres. The garden was finished in 1577 by a government officer of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) named Pan Yunduan, and this garden was specially built for Pan's parents as a place for them to enjoy a tranquil and happy time in their old age.
In the 400 years of its existence, Yuyuan Garden had undergone many changes. During the late Ming Dynasty, it became very dilapidated with the decline of Pan's family. In 1760, some rich merchants bought Yuyuan Garden and spent more than 20 years reconstructing the buildings. During the Opium War, Yuyuan Garden was severely damaged, but the Yuyuan Garden you see today is the result of a five year restoration project which began in 1956. The garden was opened to the public in 1961We then spent some time in the Old Town and had dumplings from the famous dumpling shop outside the Garden near the tea House