China: Hangzhou

From Brasilia, we flew 9 hours to Lisbon; then, after a 5-hour layover, 13 hours to Hangzhou, just a one hour train ride away from Shanghai. Hangzhou, home to 12.5 million people, is the birthplace of my maternal grandfather, capital of Southern Song dynasty 1138 to 1276, home of Alibaba, DeepSeek, Geely(auto), and other tech companies. I have loved going to Hangzhou since I was a child. We took the opportunity to hang out in Hangzhou for a few days while we worked on getting over jetlag. We were joined by our friends the Jin Sisters (below).



It had been 10 years since we were in Hangzhou last. Much has changed in Hangzhou. Other than the lake area and tea terraces, we could hardly recognize anything. We repeated some old things and tried some new things. On a rainy day, the three ladies went shopping for wedding outfits for John and Sun-Ling at the wholesale clothes market (see below). I realized much of the clothing I see around the world, in stores and markets, could have come from here. There are thousands of stores in dozens of multistory malls. I had never been dizzier before.



Sunrise on the airplane from Lisbon, Portugal to Hangzhou. The Great Wall is somewhere down below.


The Hangzhou airport is looking pretty spiffy!


Bike sharing is popular around Hangzhou.






We ate some tasty vegan and vegetarian food in Hangzhou; at night market stalls, and at sit down restaurants.










West Lake at sunset did not disappoint.




One day we walked in the tea plantations up in the hills. Great views down to West Lake! And a ridge walk!








The iconic Zhejiang World Trade Center which we remembered from our last visit in 2015.


On back to back evenings we rode the "water buses" around. 3RMB per ride; less than 50 cents US.












One day we walked about halfway around West Lake, first walking up to Baochu Pagoda for views of the lake. Then down onto the Su Causeway. Thanks to Jin Yi for the first photo below.


















In the older part of Hangzhou we checked out the Phoenix Mosque, the old scissors store (SL's family in Hangzhou owned a scissors store in the past), the house with five wells, and more.










Bonus photos. First below is the barbershop where I got a haircut.