We celebrated Valentines Day with a weekend sojourn to Hangzhou. We were really excited about the short trip, as it’s regarded for its beautiful natural scenery. Really wanted to go for longer, but we didn’t have the opportunity to take leave from work, so the weekend it was! We got the coach there/back, and also stayed overnight for 1 night. That worked out to 500? (US$73) for the both of us – a bargain!

Saturday morning started out rather startlingly – thanks to my stupidity in being unable to set my alarm properly. I knew it was a little flakey (using my mobile phone alarm as the proper clock is still in our sea shipment), so I paid extra attention.. but even so, the alarm didn’t go off. So woke up at 7:30am to sunlight, wondering “Wow, it’s pretty bright outside”… then rolled over to check my phone and “ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!” as I scrambled out of bed and dashed for the shower. Both of us got showered, dressed, packed up and out the door in 30 minutes, a total record. It was pretty impressive how quickly we can move when a fire is lit under our bums 😉

We did make it to the bus, with time to spare. Whew! The trip took around 2 hours, and it was amazing to see all the high-rise buildings rapidly dropping away as we sped into the countryside. I was actually pretty surprised to see when we arrived in HangZhou that it was also really built up, like Shanghai. There were buildings and people all over the place, much like any other city in the world. However, the difference is that there’s also a lot of natural attractions – like the famous West Lake and beautiful rolling green hills everywhere. It’s even nicer than Shanghai (which is a concrete jungle) because it’s a city AND a natural habitat, all rolled into one. It’s fabulous, I want to live there!

My Valentine Day present to.. us 😛 It’s a whole booklet of discounts/specials
to restaurants around Shanghai! AWESOME!!

Happy Valentines Day 🙂

And we’re off!

Arrived at around 10:30ish and checked into the Seasons Westlake Hotel. I was surprised that it was a LOT nicer than I’d expected.. for the price we paid, I was seriously expecting a dodgy little motel, but this was actually quite a swish hotel. Plus, it was in the city center and across the road from West Lake. Score!

Photo swiped from the hotel website