Day 7: Hangzhou

LingYin Temple 灵隐寺

First day in Hangzhou must of course visit the infamous LingYin Temple.

LingYin Temple

  

The entrance ticket (RMB45) to LingYin Temple didn't include admission to the temple itself. But it was okay because we weren't very interested in the temple anyway. We paid to visit Chenghuang Temple 城隍庙 in Shanghai and we wouldn't repeat the same mistake. FeiLai Feng 飞来峰 (literally translated as "Flying Peak") was more worthy to visit.

Entrance ticket to LingYin Temple. We didn't notice there was a barely visible line saying "excluding admission to LingYin Temple". What a joke.

Near the entrance of LingYin Temple there was a tourist information centre which provided ticket-booking service for the Impression of West Lake 印象西湖 stage play, which I'll blog about later. We decided that it was more reliable to book our tickets here than through the hostel. So we did. The sales personnel helped us call to confirm the availability and we purchased two tickets for the night's show. We were given a receipt which we would use to claim two tickets at the ticket booth near West Lake. Satisfied with our decision, we proceeded with our sight-seeing. 

FeiLai Feng 飞来峰

FeiLai Feng was made of limestone and was famous of its religious stone carvings. Legend has it that the peak was originally from India, but flew to Hangzhou overnight as a demonstration of the omnipotence of Buddhist law, thus the name "Flying Peak" (reference site: Wikipedia).

Stone carvings in FeiLai Feng.

The amount of details was amazing.

All the carvings looked ancient.

There were barriers of about 1 metre from the carvings to prevent tourists from touching them for better preservation. But still it was obvious some of the carvings had been destroyed.

Some wordings on the walls which I didn't understand.

Elder Li's Pagoda 理公塔

Elder Li's Pagoda 理公塔 was the largest stone pagoda which housed the ashes of HuiLi 慧理, the Indian monk who founded Lingyin. There were inscriptions of the Diamond Sutra and carvings of Buddha on the surface.

Endless numbers of stone carvings.

On the left showing the pilgrims of the Journey to the West.

YongFu Temple 永福寺.

The Chinese always like to have something on their roofs.

Some guy's tomb.

Somewhere deep in the clouds 云深处.

The Stones of Three Lifetimes 三生石

A Small Obstacle

In the evening we left LingYin Temple and headed to the West Lake for the Impression of West Lake stage play, only to find that we couldn't claim our tickets because there wasn't a show that night. You couldn't imagine how disappointed and pissed off and worried we were. We walked in silence across the Su Di Causeway 苏堤 back to our hostel. Upon reaching we were told that a guy tried to call us several times today. We expected it was from the personnel in the tourist information centre. We called him back and he informed us that there were no show that night (which we already knew), and that we had to bring back the receipt and exchange for another one to claim tickets for the show on the next day. We asked for a refund instead, as the receptionist at the hostel lobby had earlier persuaded us that it was safer and wiser to purchase the tickets from him directly. So yeah, we had to wake up early in the morning and take the trouble to travel back to LingYin Temple for our refund.

Lesson 6: For pre-book tickets, it's more convenient to buy from the hotel. Whatever happens, you still have someone to hold responsible to.

Accommodation

Back at the hostel, unpleasant things continued to happen. As promised, we were given a double bed room, which I hoped had better water heater facility. It had indeed worked fine. After our shower and meal I was knocked out, while Mr. Chin stayed awake reading a novel he borrowed from the bookshelf at the lobby.

That was our dinner - cheap and yummy. I liked it. Oh, and that was the book over there Mr. Chin was reading.

That was the bed. I should had taken the picture before messing up the bed.

Not too bad, eh?

My ultraman towel hanging there.

I woke from feeling Mr. Chin moving beside me. I watched in horror as he caught tiny, black bugs from underneath the pillow and put them into an empty container that we used to keep the sour plum.

"I'm going to complain," he said, still with a calm and steady voice. But from his face I could tell he was quite pissed off. I decided to leave this to him. He came back telling me to pack our stuff because we were moving back to the room we stayed on the previous night - the one with the malfunction heater. 

Great, I thought, at least I had already taken my shower. I shouldn't need to worry about that until tomorrow night.

After settling in, the hostel personnel came knocking at our door to apologized and offered us free breakfasts the next morning. Well that was the least they could do, no?

The NeverEnding Story

Watching The NeverEnding Story certainly brings back my childhood memories. The film was released in 1984, the year which I was born.



I remember I couldn't understand a word they said, not having English as a mother tongue. However I was deeply fascinated. I had watched it dozens of times as a kid. And today, I decided to relive this experience. This time, with a better understanding of the whole story.

The story was about this boy Bastian who decided he should listen to his dad and stop his imagination and daydreaming, before he got hold of a mysterious book which was "not safe" for him to read. Curious, he ventured into the world of Fantasia, which was a world of human fantasy. Fantasia was being consumed by the "nothingness" because human was losing hope. A child warrior, Atreyu was chosen to begin a quest to save Fantasia. Bastian soon realized that while he was following Atreyu's adventure, Atreyu was following his as well.

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.

And I'll love you, always.

Distinctly remember during my childhood, my brother who is 10 years older, would sing shout this song to me all the time and forced me to listen. He was seriously obsessed with Bon Jovi. I hated this song then. But as I grew older I began to be able to appreciate this song - its powerful vocal, its meaningful lyrics. My favourite would be,

when he holds you close
when he pulls you near
when he says the words
you've been needing to hear
I wish I was him and those words were mine
to say to you till the end of time