Saturday

Hi everyone this morning we travelled to the beautiful city of Hangzhou which means Heaven on earth and has 4 million inhabitants. By coach it took 3 and a half hours. When we arrived we went to a lovely hotel for our lavish meal set out in a large private room on a round table which is custom to the chinese people. We had the most amazing feast of several dishes served to us in the middle of the table of which we helped ourselves by turning the large glass lazy susan.....the food was everything you could think of including tiny whole fish..crab....jelly fish (which wasnt so nice) frogs.....chicken...beef...and loads more that i just dont have a name for and yes most of the group was brave enough to try it all including me  :-) . After out meal we went to the most famous and beautiful lake. It has numerous temples(which we will get to visit) pagados. Pavillions. And the most beautiful gardens you have ever saw. This Lake has the most beautiful love story to tell . the love of a man and woman who fell in love at one of the bridges only for the man to find out that she was not a real woman. I will try remember the story and post at a later time. After the lake we went to a proper posh hotel called Hangzhou zhongshan international the group were blown away with Chinas generosity. It was proper top class and staff were amazing when it was descovered that only two of the group brought their passports which we required to check into hotel with. So a collegue from our uni campus accommodation had to go into all the rooms to retrieve the passports and get the fast train into Hangzhou otherwise we could not have stayed. Thank goodness ! more tomorrow guys