February 2017
There’s a Chinese saying that the most beautiful women come from the West Lake(Xihu) of Hangzhou. Marco Polo was supposed to have called Hangzhou, “the city of heaven.” Then there is another Chinese saying, “Be born in Suzhou, live in Hangzhou, eat in Guangzhou, die in Liuzhou,” meaning Suzhou was renowned for its civilized citizens, Hangzhou for its scenery, Guangzhou for its food, and Liuzhou for its wooden coffins which supposedly halted the decay of the body.
Those would be too much of a hype to follow through for any one place. We never really were struck by the beauty of the ladies we ran into on streets of Hangzhou. Nor did we feel that we were in heaven or find the city exceptionally beautiful. But we liked it.
We liked Hangzhou because people seemed to stroll, not run. The air quality seemed ok. We were there only for one day and a night, but we could picture ourselves spending more time there without doing much. For a city of 8.7 million people, it managed to stay low-key.
Yes, the Lake! We wanted to see the free light show in the evening, but there were just too many people where it was happening on the eastern shore of the lake. After waiting in the antsy pushy crowd for close to a half an hour, we gave up. We just walked very slowly east toward the Qiantang River(map link) for a mile or two, and that was fine. There were lots of shops and eateries along the way, and we had our dinner at a place packed with locals talking and laughing.
Hangzhou was a stop on our 8-day tour package we found on Travelzoo for $549pp. The next morning we were driven to a park on the north coast of the West Lake. It was in February, but some flowers were blooming. From there we got on a boat to explore the lake for an hour or so. It was raining lightly off and on, but the calm lake seemed to show the romantic appeal under the mist. No wonder so many poets wrote about this lake!
Hangzhou can be a quick 50-minute train ride(78 Yuan) from Shanghai(180 Km) if you use the bullet train, but, our guide boasted that the travel time will be cut in half when the new plan is realized. I am not clear on the dates for this, though.
If we go there again, we will plan to spend at least two nights. We’d stay someplace between the eastern shore of the Lake and the main train station to be able to walk everywhere. We may want to try bicycling around the Lake(around 12Km).
[update: October 2019]
We DID go back to Hangzhou in about two and a half years, and, again, it was an overnight stop during a packaged tour. This time we stayed way outside of the city, and we did not get to walk around the old town. It was raining on and off, thus, it did not matter much.
As we entered the city, we stopped at Liuhe Pagoda on the eastern bank of Qiantang River. We did not have enough energy to walk up to the top, but we walked around the park complex.
The view we saw was pretty much the grey suburban high-rise development area.
The next morning, we had another West Lake boat experience.
From one angle, you could get this kind of view.
From another, you would get the view of a modern city.
Every Hangzhou tour includes a visit to a tea plantation. This area produces Longjing(Dragon Well) tea, and there are some well practiced sales people who are quite good at making you buy this expensive pleasure at what they call tea culture centers.
Small Wide World 
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