It’s off to Hang Zhou for the Spring break here in China. Did not manage to plan a further trip, due to lack of time and experience, so we (a whole bunch of us) were headed to the near by city of Hang Zhou to R&R.

Here’s all of us at the Shanghai Train Station all ready for our trip. This was the first time that I was taking a train. So exciting! (L to R: Chin Keong, Lee Tong, Minquan, KC, Bong, Fionna, Shallene)

It was also the 1st time that I saw snow. It was a slight trickle of snow, but it was damn exciting!

We shared cabs to our hotel and checked in (secretly). Haha. We had 3 rooms but in 2 of the rooms, we did not tell them that we had more than 2 people, so we had the last person just walk in. =)

After which, we made our way to West Lake 西湖 via cab again. I think next time round should stay nearer so the lake would be within walking distance.

It was winter and after the snow, the scenery at the lake was beautiful. One direction you see the snow capped hills, the other the tranquil lake. There were a lot of people though.

Here’s us eating ice cream in spite of the cold. Eating ice cream during winter is really more enjoyable because it doesn’t melt so quickly and you can enjoy the ice cream much longer.

After roaming all the beautiful places, we finally went in search for dinner. There was the very famous restaurant by the lake called 楼外楼 (Lou wai lou), which was world renowned but a bit pricey. We had all the famous dishes among the 8 of us.

Long Jing Tea Prawns 龙井虾仁 – The taste was very subtle and delicate. Nice to try!

Dong Po Meat 东坡肉 – Delicious flabby fatty piece of meat!

West Lake Vinegar Fish 西湖糖醋鱼 – Nicely done, but the fish had a lot of bones.

Beggar’s Chicken 叫化鸡 – Good, was suppose to be a dish made by beggar’s long time ago.

West Lake Vegetable Soup 西湖纯菜汤 – Slimy vegetable leaves in a very plain soup. Not worth trying.

After dinner, we went for a late night stroll down 延安路. Reached this night market, old city street which was dark and quite old school.

吴山路 If I remember correctly, this was the name of the street.

In the end, bought a lot of 酥 from a local shop which was really quite nice. I especially liked the 黑芝麻酥 Black Sesame Flavoured ones.

That’s all for tonight.