Beautiful Hangzhou

We agree with Marco Polo, we can see why Hangzhou has a reputation for beauty.





Yesterday Charlotte, Bill and I had another go at the Yiwu Trade market, while Kate packed up her stuff. We were surprisingly succcessful. Charlotte's cold ( yes we are blaming you Hannah!) is much better, and she is pretty much back to normal apart from a bit of nose blowing and cough, so she was fully into marketing. Bill bought himself a portable DVD player, which pleases him enormously, and Chalotte found a fabulous pair of shoes - what more could we ask!

Back to the school, and a quick look at some of the students' art work with Peter (and he gave us a painting that his son had sent him - he was very sweet), and a final pack up with Kate before making a trip to the post office with our wheelie bags to post away her surplus stuff. Those bags are so useful - we must have done 3 or 4 trips back and forth between the school and hotel towing the bag!

We went out for tea with Peter, which was very good. Just him and us, and no gumbays, as Peter doesn't drink alcohol. We let him guide our selection, so what we actually drank was corn juice! It was interesting to talk to him a bit about his life, and the school. He does seem to genuinely like Kate, and has been very helpful in his funny way. He had us all cracking up with his desription of a misdirected firework knocking down a wall.

Tea was over pretty early, so we went for haircuts and hairwashes, an interesting experience. Charlotte came out quite short and fluffy but Kate, who really needed the haircut, hardly lost any at all!

Kate was a bit sad to leave Yiwu I think, but excited about embarking on the next part of their trip.

We set off early this morning on the fast train. The stations are pretty crowded with long queues booking for the New Year holiday, but luckily we had booked our tickets at the hotel. The train was great, very comfortable and quick, and we had a bit of a look at the countryside. We have booked the bus to Shanghai on Thurs however - slower and probably less comfortable, but it takes us direct to both airports (we leave from different ones) and that seemed easier with all our luggage.

We had lunch at a restaurant on the lake (where you went with Kate, Jiggs), and then had a ride on one of the wee row boats, and a walk around the lake. We also hired bikes, and rode a bit further round the lake, stopping to watch the musical fountain display.



Later we thought we would walk to a famous teahouse - an hour and a half later we were still walking, and found we were in the night market, and it was pretty much night! So we gave up on tea, and had some dinner (recommend the beggars chicken), and then marketed (again!) The girls attracted quite a crowd to watch their portraits being drawn!



Just about off to bed now. Good to get your email and comments everyone, we love hearing from you