Being a Tourist in Your Own Town

A couple of weekends ago, my friend Stephanie, who I recently visited in Nanjing, came to visit me in Hangzhou! I used this as an opportunity to play tourist in Hangzhou for the weekend.

Our first stop was to visit West Lake around sunset. It's definitely my favorite place in Hangzhou. It doesn't really feel like you're in the middle of a city of 9 million people. It's perfectly kept up and at night, it's lit up so beautifully. 

Between the remaining autumn colors and the golden light, it was extra pretty.

On Saturday afternoon, we went to Longjing village, which is famous for growing the type of tea Hangzhou is famous for (called Longjing). 

You can just walk through the tea fields, which are mixed in with houses and countless tea shops.

Longjing village is remarkably quiet compared to the hustle and bustle of Hangzhou proper. On a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon, it was the perfect place to have a little picnic snack in the middle of the fields while soaking up some much needed vitamin D.

We also spotted lots of ducks hanging up. I suppose this is to cure them or dry them. We saw people hanging ducks and sausage from clothes lines, poles, etc. - basically anywhere they could. I've never really seen this until recently.

We had to stop in one of the tea shops and get some tea. We sat for an hour or two and drank endless glasses of tea, munched on sunflower seeds, and played with the dog of the owners of the shop.

We actually got talking with the owners of the tea shop and it turns out their daughter is studying in Virginia. I'm from North Carolina and Stephanie is from West Virginia, so we were really excited. We had a pretty good chat with them

There was also this little girl walking around, playing with the dog, and staring at us. Stephanie asked her, "妹妹，你今年几岁？Little sister, how old are you?" and the little girl responded "我五岁。I'm 5." And after a small pause, she said "你叫我姐姐。Call me older sister." We had a pretty good laugh. 

The next morning, we went to Hefang Jie, which is an ancient market street. I picked up some presents for friends. Then we wandered up the hill nearby to check out the temple. Unfortunately it was ticketed and we didn't have time to properly, so we had to head back.

I had such a nice weekend with Stephanie. It's always really nice to show someone around where you live. I have had really nice experiences showing friends around Edinburgh, too. When showing people around, you often have new experiences and find things you didn't even know were there!