26th March - Hangzhou

Woke up feeling a bit better but chesty. We didn't get out and exploring as soon as we'd hoped because we spent ages trying to find a hotel that was available and that we could afford in Hong Kong. Booked one before we booked the train tickets as we were concerned that it might not be available after we'd done the monstrous bus trek into the city and back.

We managed to board the bus just fine now it was no longer longer the weekend and there were just enought seats for everyone.  We actually thought we might have a pleasant trip around the lake but a few hundred yards down the road the bus zombies came. Hoards of people from young to mega old came staggering towards the bus, grappling with one another to get one. From the different perspective of being on the bus looking outwards, you can see that they actually enjoy it and many of them are grinning as join in the tussle - the old 'uns especially.

As we should have anticipated, we couldn't get train on the day we wanted so we have an extra day in crazy town and have probably wasted £30 on one night of the Hong Kong hostel. If only we could book trains online!

We explored the city a little and found a nice pedestrianised street, with traditional style building and shed-loads of tourists. There was a food section too and so we entertained ourselves by studying the horrifying array of 'stick food' including whole baby ducks, all twisted and deformed looking, and lots of insides of things. There were also glistening brown goose heads and lots more general grimness. It's said that the Chinese eat everything with legs and wings other than tables and aeroplanes and it would appear that it's absolutely true.

Wried to walk through the city but I was flagging my this time and we weren't exploring properly - mostly just trying to find our way back to bus stop. After quite a while, we finally found it and waited around for bit before checking the sign more closely (we hadn;t seen the point before since it was in Chinese!) and realising that buses stopped at 4.20! That's even worse than Shanghai metros!

We had no choice but to splash out and get a taxi back but at least it was on the meter and we didn't have to haggle. It didn't drop us off at the hostel but it wasn't too far away and so we didn't have too long to walk back. And we got the added bonus of stopping to watch a bunch of women doing some sort of synchronised, flag waving, drum dance. It wasn't as tribal as I make that sound either, just one of the forms of excercise for all that is practiced in China. We've seen groups of adults doing fun forms of workouts all over the place. There's usually somewhere between 10 and 20 people, aged from early 20s to late 80s and practising whichever routine they have, in whichever public square is nearby. It's a great idea and they do it completely unconsciously and without anyone mocking. It really seems to make a difference to old people here too and I haven't seen a single one who isn't able to run whilst carrying a heavy load.