Day 6: Shanghai - Hangzhou

Bye-bye Shanghai =(

On the 6th day we were to bid Shanghai farewell and board the 10:00 a.m. Gaotie "高铁" (bullet train) back to Hangzhou. The Gaotie ticket was much more expensive than Dongche "动车" - RMB82 per head (refer to my previous post for more information).

Waiting to board the train in 上海虹桥火车站 Shanghai Hongqiao train station.

Reached Hangzhou in 45 minutes.

Hello again, Hanghzou =)

Of course we can't miss dining in the infamous 外婆家 The Grandma's in Hangzhou. There was one branch near the Hangzhou train station. We decided to give it a try before taking the bus back to our hostel.

It was located on the 15th floor of a hotel building next to the train station. We didn't expect to walk into a high-standard-looking-restaurant and the waitresses were greeting us at the entrance saying "欢迎光临!" ("Welcome!"). By that time we had limited budget and I asked for the menu before making a mistake beyond repair.

As if reading my mind, she said with a smile, "菜单在里面可以看，我们的价钱很公道的。" ("You can view the menu inside, we give reasonable prices.") Feeling slightly embarrassed, we walked in, only to find......

... that the Chinese tea was free-flow, and FREE...

(I could tell that the tea leaves they used weren't those good ones. But yeah, it was manageable.)

... that the Dongpo pork 东坡肉 was reasonably-priced...

... that this 麻辣豆腐 spicy tofu cost RMB3...

... and the fish...

... and the fried don't-know-what...

... and the 葱油拌面 noodles with onion oil... all incredibly, reasonably priced!

We tour around West Lake after checking in the Hangzhou West Lake Youth Hostel 杭州过客青年旅社. I chose this hostel due to the good feedback and reviews from some websites that I browsed.

断桥 The broken bridge.

This was where Bai Suzhen and Xuxian met when they were reunited (refer to my previous post for the love story between Bai Suzhen and Xuxian).

Could see Leifeng Pagoda 雷峰塔 from there.

And the Chenghuang Temple 城隍庙.

Mr. Chin saying bye-bye.

Musical fountain 音乐喷泉. It was nothing to shout about.

Accommodation

So we called it a day and went back to the hostel room. Like I said, I had read so many positive reviews of this hostel before I came. And I didn't know we would be so unlucky.

First the hostel staff told us we couldn't have the double bed room that we wanted because they had to do some pest control for the only double bed room available, which was fine and we could understand as we made the booking quite last minute. However, he was being really helpful and said that we could stay in the twin bed room for the night and shift to the double bed room the next day. We agreed.

So we went back to the room and when we wanted to shower, there was no hot water. I couldn't imagine myself showering with the room temperature water when I was freezing my ass off. So we went to complain and the staff checked and reverted to us that the hot water was available in all the other rooms. The "water heater technician" came and said he couldn't find anything wrong with the water heater. The solution they gave us, was to use the bathroom in the double bed room which was undergoing pest control. We didn't like the idea very much as we didn't feel comfortable about it. We decided to wait for a while and see if the water heater would have mercy on us.

In the end the water heater did came to his senses. But the temperature fluctuated like hell! The whole showering process was like a roller coaster ride. Suddenly I was missing the warm bathroom in my brother's condo.

I literally jumped into the blanket after shower. I thought it'd be all over once we moved to the double bed room the next day. I was wrong.