Next we went to Nine Creeks which is beautiful and a long walk. We kept on walking towards the Six Harmonies Pagoda.
This is also one of Hangzhou's main sights. After a lot of walking, I decided to get a taxi but it seemed that the driver did not want to take us into the city, which I did not understand, so I asked the guy from tourist information for the bus number to get to Hefang Street and had my first experience of a Chinese bus.
The bus can get very very busy and people are almost sitting on top of you or you feel someone’s elbow in your back. The driver was probably about 18 years old and was heavy on the brakes so I started to feel slightly ill. Luckily it was not a long journey. Also, it was hard to tell when we actually arrived at Hefang Street because you could hardly see any signs, but luckily we managed to find the right exit. Hefang Street is a very busy shopping street and worth seeing.
Hubin Road is one of my favourite streets for food. It is packed with restaurants. My favourite is the Green Tea restaurant where you take a number and wait until the girls shout out yours.
Unfortunately we had to wait about an hour, but the food was very good, especially the marinated fish with coriander and green tea and the chicken in vinegar. The same procedure works at Grandma’s Kitchen where you pick up a number and have to wait at least 30 minutes. They can hardly speak English, but the food is very good.
Gaoyin Street is a street with plenty of cheap restaurants, but not necessarily very good ones. I had tofu and other side dishes and had hardly eaten any of it, because the taste was just awful. So we ended up having a MacDonald’s afterwards!
Every single night right in front of our hotel there was the Wushan Lu night market which is a very nice clothes and accessories market and the best place to get cheap stuff. I managed to get a long sleeve for 2 pounds!
The highlight of our trip was the firework festival. We were very lucky that it took place whilst we were there. Stunning fireworks in different colours and shapes were displayed and loads of people were watching it from the nearby streets. The whole city was just full, vivid and everyone seemed happy. Even the fireworks were so loud compared to the European ones. The night was definitely proof that the Chinese know how to produce fantastic fireworks!
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