Hangzhou ~ afternoon

After the Pagoda, it was lunchtime. And then we headed to an amusement park. It was like old-town San Diego or Old Tucson but with traditional Chinese things, replicas of buildings, people in costumes, performances ... Super cool. It had rides too but they were closed and we only had a half hour to walk around. I got swindled!!! A guy came and grabbed me and sat me in a marriage carriage and they paraded me in a circle with squires playing music. It was really fun - but then they wanted me to pay $30 yuen. What?!?!! So I showed them a 5 and said it was all I had for it. They got mad and grabbed my arm and pointed to my purse, I thought they were gonna open it and dig out my wallet for me!!! Bit just then another girl in my group got "taken" too so they were trying toget money from her and I just walked away. No one followed me and I was feeling like I got away ... Bit then I felt bad, I knew it would bug me. So I swallowed my pride and walked back where they attacked me even worse until I handed them the money!!! Crayyyyyyzee!! But I'm glad I paid and I can own up to the fact they totally trapped me like a stupid American tourist!!! Hahahaha. There were 4 of us that had that happen!!

They had a "strange street" with sideways rooms and upside down rooms. Cotton candy that shrunk like crazy in the humidity! 

And we were off to the "show" - wowww. The show was so amazing!!! It was about an hour long and told the story of Hangzhou with dancing and music and acting. But was so over the top!!! Like it rained on stage, there were real horses galloping by, a WATERFALL on stage - it was just super cool. 

Part of the show

Broken bridge in the show

Waterfall on stage!

Couldn't really capture how awesome it was!

After the amusement park, we went to a Buddist temple up in the mountains. The drive was gorgeous because the mountains are just lush and so green. There are a lot of tea plantations so you see the terraced fields too. 

It was raining, but it made it all misty and cool looking. There are many Buddhas. The main 3 were in this temple. Happy buddah to welcome us, then this giant statue of another buddah (can't remember his name right now) and a medicine buddah along with a buddah that's female and is the buddah of mercy. 

Biggest statue of the Buddah

Female Buddah of mercy with many guardians around her

Medicine buddah

So you walk around and see the different buddahs and then there's a stream and you can wade across the stream and on the other side, there are just stairs to hike around and appreciate solitude in nature. So Melissa and I hiked around not really knowing where the stairs led or where we were going. It was super cool. And then, the last stop was a cave with buddahs on the outside, carved into the mountain.

Stairs on the other side of the stream

Stairs

Caves 

For dinner we went to a very nice restaurant, my favorite so far, where we had typical dishes from Hangzhou. One was a chicken called "beggars chicken" slow cooked in clay. Very yum. The best though, was that I finally had an entire meal with only chopsticks!! (Lunch I did half my meal with chopsticks and then resorted to my fork again). There was also this eggplant that was delicious and tiny little white fish. 

Walking to our restaurant

Outside the restaurant

I forgot to take another picture with triple the dishes you see here!

Happy with my chopstick accomplishment!!

Teeny tiny fish

This is a bread roll. Soft and bland-tasting. I like them.