We wanted to eat food that was primarily from Hangzhou so we asked our hotel concierge for his recommendation. We trust his judgement since he is from Hangzhou and I’m so glad we listened to him! We went to a place that is right on West Lake, it must be a tourist attraction as well because it was packed even past breakfast and before lunch hours!

This is where we went, you have to walk through a parking lot that is guarded. There are swarms of people walking around and we didn’t have too much difficulty getting a table. Maybe because it was only the two of us? But there were lots of people, mostly Chinese but I saw a few foreigners here and there. 

Lotus Root with a sweet glaze, fresh longan fruit on the side. It was beautiful to look at, it was so pretty with the blossoms and the red hue. But not my favorite to eat, it was so sweet that I could only eat a few bites. 

Classic pork and crab soup dumplings. I thought it was only a Shanghai thing but Hangzhou does it too. It was delicious, plenty of soup and the meat was so tender. Definitely get this here. 

Hangzhou’s most famous dish is called Dongpo Pork which was named after the famous poet Su Dongpo. We read at his museum that he made improvements to the dish while he was in Hangzhou and what we eat today is the result. Smart man, if you love pork belly (as you should, everyone should love bacon… unless you’re vegetarian) then you’ll love this. 

It was such a small piece but it was so delicious. Since it’s so rich, fatty and flavorful, you would only want a small portion. My mouth is watering while I’m writing this post. ((((DROOOOOOLS))))

We had chive dumplings, the skin was especially good. I feel like the skins on most dumplings are so mediocre, they usually get soggy or really rubbery but these were delicious. They were pipping hot, which is the only way I like my dim sum!

Fried daze fish with black beans and you would think it’s a hot dish, but it’s not. It’s cold and extremely tasty. I love daze fish so I knew I would like this and I’ve had a dish similar to this while we were in Hong Kong. If you enjoy eating fish, you must get this!

This was my favorite this of all. It’s a type of jook or rice porridge. It had duck and napa cabbage. I love putting rice in my soups so this kind of reminded me of that. It wasn’t too salty but very flavorful. The bowl was gigantic and I could have easily eaten it myself because I loved it so very much!

If you can read Chinese, this is what we ate! Only 116RMB for all of that food, which was probably too much for two people. It’s a nicer place so it’s definitely a treat. Has anyone been to Hangzhou? How about Shanghai? I could use some recommendations for food and things to do that aren’t listed in my guidebooks.

We have been in China for a month now and during this month we have been traveling from Shanghai to Hangzhou. The hubs works in Shanghai but he was sent to Hangzhou as a intro of sorts to the way things work in China. No complaints here since it’s absolutely beautiful here. Hangzhou is famous for their rich history from the Song dynasty and Marco Polo is rumored to have been there and loved it.

West Lake is the main attraction and the guide books are right, it is one of the most beautiful natural landscapes I have ever seen. People from all over China, Korea and Japan come to visit… It’s true, we saw them all there and even saw quite a few Europeans.

We walked all around the Lake and over the bridges. Each bridge had a really beautiful name, my favorite was “Melting snow hanging over broken bridge”. I took this picture of the sunset from that very bridge. The name was so epic in my opinion. W was telling me that in Chinese it’s very poetic. I think even the direct translation from Chinese is lovely, I told him we’ll name our first born after that bridge. He laughed, I was serious. Come here little MSHOBB! Mama loves you!

There were many boats around the lake for tourists and it really reminded me of the gondolas in Venice. The boats were narrow, one man in the back with one giant paddle and as we were walking we saw the boats rocking from side to side. If you get sea sick easily, it might not be the ride for you. They do have the more commercial boats that are gigantic but I always feel like you miss out on stuff if you ride those. We decided not to ride any boat and walked instead, it was the most perfect weather and we enjoyed it very much.

There were lotus pads everywhere. Sadly it’s not the season for lotus but it was still an amazing site. I can only imagine how impressive it would be with lotus flowers everywhere.

Everywhere we walked was unreal. We felt as though we were walking through a painting. The trees on the walkway, the reflections in the water and all the koi swimming in the lake. It was truly dreamlike. When W and I were looking at the photos I took, he said that we look like we had photoshopped ourselves on there and nobody would believe we were actually there. I laughed because… I don’t know how to use photoshop.

We walked to the temples and tombs that surrounded West Lake. It was a long day and by this time we were both a bit tired from walking around and through the causeway. But we love history so we really enjoyed going through the temples and for W it was especially fun for him since he really knows his Chinese history. Everything he read as a child had come to life when we visited Yue Fei‘s temple.

That’s him! Don’t let the photo fool you, he’s probably 10 times bigger than you think he is. It was really impressive and there were paintings on all the walls surrounding his statue about his life. My favorite moment was seeing a father telling his son about each painting and telling him about the great Yue Fei.

One of the paintings was telling the story about Yue Fei’s mother tattooing the words:

Which means “serve the country with the utmost loyalty”. Remember what I said about the Chinese naming their bridges with epic names? Well this guy got this tattooed on his BACK. That is commitment and if that doesn’t show that you love your country… nothing will. I’m starting to think the Chinese have a flair for the dramatic.

Poor guy was arrested under false charges and so did people close to him. But now they are immortalized by having a temple where people come and pray to him, give offerings and for people like W and I… to learn about the history of Hongzhou during the Song dynasty.

It wouldn’t be us if we didn’t insert some kind of random picture. We were terrified of this guy, who is Yue Fei’s most trusted right hand man. He has his own section that is next to Yue Fei’s temple. His eyes follow you no matter where you are in the room… like the Mona Lisa but scary.

Hangzhou was fun and Saturday was our last day there. W’s colleague was so kind to us during our stay there, even took us out to lunch. We tried durian (aka the stinky fruit) for the first time and it was actually pretty good. I’ll have to post about the food we ate in Hangzhou, it’s mouth watering!

I love that West Lake still looks preserved and I hope it stays that way forever. It’s really so beautiful.

Oh, hello there!

This is my brand new blog courtesy of my awesome SIL! She designed this whole blog, look at how cute it is!! Ahh! I love how she made my husband and I taking a self pic…. cuz we actually do that all the time. The flowers, clouds and hearts… oh my goodness, seriously… she knows me SO WELL! I just noticed the background is a little lacey too, I love it. Ugh, Jenny I miss you and thank you for making this for me!

I was thinking about bringing all my old blog entries to this blog. But I decided not to. Why you ask? Well, mostly because I’m lazy… And the fact that I kind of like starting my new blog, fresh. Since we moved to China it’s been extremely difficult to update my old blog since WordPress is blocked in China. We have a VPN which gains us access to blocked sites but it’s so unstable. It usually took me a whole day or two to update one blog entry. It was frustrating….

But now that’s all over! Thanks to my SIL I don’t need a VPN to update my blog! Yay! Though, if you have a blog and it is using blogger, wordpress or anything that’s blocked in China. That might explain why I haven’t been commenting on your blogs as much because it’s so difficult to.

So now we’re Expats. I always thought that W and I would be in NYC for some reason. I thought if we were to move out of the country it would be Paris. I love Paris, plus the hubs works for a Parisian company. But we’re in Shanghai, I thought that I might have a difficult time adjusting to life here but I honestly feel like I’m on a long vacation. Eating out every day, living out of hotels… traveling back and forth from Shanghai to Hangzhou. Yeah, I suppose it hasn’t hit me yet.

I had a few moments where I felt a little lonely. I think it was mostly because I was sick, don’t have many friends here (yet) and I really miss my piano, cello and other instruments which are in a sea shipment. I did some research and found the yarn district in Shanghai! I bought some yarn that was crazy cheap… 500g wool for 68RMB. (((LOVE))) 

So I spent my free time making a hat for W’s coworker’s boy. He looks so cute in it and both his parents loved it! Ahhhhh! Look at how adorable he is:

 
Seriously. How cute is this kid? I used my owl hat pattern to make his hat and stuck a pom pom on top of it.  I wish I had another colored yarn to make the border of the hat and add some cute braided tassels like my owl hats. Is that weird to have that for boys? I don’t know how cold it gets here in Hangzhou but I hope he gets some good use out of it!

I can’t wait for us to move into our apartment. I think we’re actually moving in next week if all goes well. Apartment hunting is a pain, just like it is in the states. But we found an amazing place and know that we’ll be happy there while we live in China. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving yesterday… I know we did. Dinner with my husband and we talked about all the things we were grateful for: each other, family, friends, health, having food in our bellies everyday and most of all… love.