Hangzhou, China 杭州

April 2010

Hangzhou highlights:

• West Lake - stay in a hotel on the lake, get a boat ride for the day, haggle for silk in shop
• Xixi Wetlands - national park lands that used to be Song dynasty resort area, go early morning to beat the crowds
• Longjing tea village - taste at the tea shops and see the roasting
• Impressions on West Lake - amazing night time show by Zhang Yimou (Beijing Olympics opening ceremony) set in the middle of the lake
• FOOD - Hangzhou cuisine is lighter with fresh fish, vinegar based sauces, and just delicious

We decided to take a weekend trip to Hangzhou, a 'second tier' city about 150 km from Shanghai. I say 'second tier' in quotes because while it is considered a 'small city' by Chinese standards with 6.1 million residents, Hangzhou is over 6 times the size of San Francisco, which many consider a legitimate size city.

We trained it... purchased tickets on Monday, 64 CNY (about each way first class on the express. We got to Shanghai South station and tried to get on an earlier train, but no luck. Btw, this train station is bigger than many legitimate international airports in the US. However, the capacity for the space is severaly under strain... the waiting area was standing room only, and wow do the Chinese not need their personal space.

The craziest thing was the mad rush of thousands to the train, though puzzling given (I think) most of the train had assigned seating...


Craziness at Shanghai South Train Station

The train was nice actually, though 7 pm meant too dark for good views. We arrived in Hangzhou in about 1 hr 30 min, and we (mistakenly) decided to avoid the mad crowd and wait to get off the train. We were literally the last ones to get off of the train. We walked towards the taxi signs... and discovered why rushing in the disembarking process would have been a good idea. So we got in a semi-orderly line down this narrow, poorly lit hallway... the gypsy cabs started to peddle... I am very fortunate to be with two Mandarin speakers, one Chinese, one Singaporean. I do however know that "bu yau" (don't want) is the correct answer to these non-authorized cabs. Even the locals have healthy skepticism about safety, not to mention the 2x-3x price.

Now, we decided not to enlist the services of the gypsy cabs. But. In turn we experienced first hand the challenges of urbanization... This city has exploded in size and popularity in the past decade without building corresponding infrastructure. That means that a 1 hr 20 min train ride of 150km can be followed by a 1 hr 30 min cab line queue to travel 5km. Wow.

Once in a cab, we drove out of the very typical built out Asian city downtown towards West Lake area where we were staying at the Shangri-la Hotel, a beautiful old hotel right on the lake. It is actually a gated complex with multiple buildings. They do also have staff with pretty decent English skills.

We tried to book some tours in the morning, and it turned out lucky for us we couldn't book morning-of. We hired a cab driver for the day and head out to Xixi Wetlands, about 20 minutes from West Lake.

We arrived early, around 9am and traded phone numbers with the driver for pick up in a few hours. They are wetlands and national park lands. The area was used as Song dynasty resort land for the later generations (who subsequently lost power I think), and has a number of areas with old (or more often reconstructed) buildings from that time period. It was a lovely walk in the park, at least for the first few hours until the tour groups started.

After walking the length of the park, we decided to take a boat ride on the canals to return to our pick up location. We wanted one of the small boats with a personal rower, but apparently you can only charter one of those at the main entrance, not at the smaller docks along the way. So we found one of the loading docks for the larger (20-30 ppl) motorized boats. After some queueing, we had a pleasant ride on the rivers.

GO EARLY. We had minutes at a time to ourselves in the morning. We spent the late morning and early afternoon walking around groups and waiting behind cigarette smoke

Some funny footage from Xixi... apparently old Kung Fu masters used to practice agility on tree stumps...



Crouching Paula Hidden Lai Yun

After Xixi, our next stop was Longjing tea village. Longjin, which means Dragon Well, is the home of Longjing green tea, and the village is home to the farmers who grow, harvest and roast the tea, as well as the tea houses who cater to tourists to come to taste and see. It was a beautiful town built into the hills, along with the terraced tea fields. The tea is definitely expensive (especially when they know you are a tourist) but worth going to taste and see the tea being made and walk around.

Longjing Dragon Well tea village

Dinner at Lou Wai Lou - this is one of the famous restaurants in Hangzhou. Very large but we barely got a table when we arrived at 5:30 pm, they don't take bookings. Hotel at recommended no later than 6 pm for no wait and that might even be late. Absolutely delicious local cuisine and reasonable (123 CNY per person)

We had tickets to the 9:15 pm Impressions performance (there's also a 7 pm). Absolutely amazing and entertaining. Imagine the awe and beauty of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony with more creativity using the landscape of West Lake and less scale. The lake is literally the stage -- there is a platform that can be raised and lowered in the lake so the actors "walk on water" and also arrive via boats. The trees and pagodas are lit up, and in different colors throughout the show. Definitely go see one if you have the chance, Zhang Yimou has others across the country. Photos and video doesn't do the magical performance justice, but here is their promotional video



Ultimately the show was a 9 out of 10, with the minus one point solely because of the audience. As ironic as it sounds, Americans have a certain etiquette for spectating that is a luxury - no talking during the show, no flash photography or filming, no smoking... unfortunately these things were extremely distracting during the show. A beautiful scene in the light show is unfolding, then you see flash-flash-flash. Clearly the flash photography is doing nothing to capture the night time scene, but happens throughout the show nonetheless.

On Sunday morning, our attempt to drive out to the ancient Lingyin Temple was thwarted by parking lot-like traffic on the main Beishan Road around the lake. We hopped out of the cab and were denied by the bike rental folks -- apparently you need to procure a special card before using the kiosks to rent. But that led us to try a boat for our transport mode for the day, and that proved to be a wonderful experience.



On West Lake

The boat driver dropped us at the west end of the lake to a pearl shop. We didn't find any we wanted, though very pretty fresh-water pearls there, and we head across the street to a tea shop, where we tasted and bought about 500g for 800CNY between the three of us. Then we stopped at a "Farmer's Happiness" restaurant for lunch -- these are eateries where you point and choose your meal (rather than from a menu). Food was fantastic and fresh. We ate many vegetable dishes, amazing Peking duck, jellyfish, more fresh water fish, and soup.



Lunch at Farmer's Happiness

Austin

February 2009

Super fun city with great food and cute neighborhoods, though I think we saw a lot of it in one weekend. Nice running trails by the Colorado River, and some cute (though surprisingly expensive) shopping around some of the main streets.

6th Street, South Congress, and strip of restaurants by W 2nd were our favs.

Food - http://aki-eats.blogspot.com/search/label/Austin

Bars
*San Jose Hotel Lounge was great outdoor space in SoCo district. Wine and beer only but yummy speciality drinks
*Cedar Street Courtyard in the Warehouse district has amazing outdoor stage and we saw a U2 cover band "Mysterious Ways"!
*Six Lounge was our favorite late night club, and we closed out both nights here. Great dancing, loved the DJ.

Hotel
The Driskill is the second oldest hotel in Texas, and very old school charming. And Texan. Like sculptures of the Confederate Army from Civil War and bull mounted on the wall. But the rooms were nice and reasonable rates.

New Zealand - Milford Track

Great NYTimes article on Milford Track, which we hiked on the April 2007 trip

"A Walk Through New Zealand’s Watery Wild", January 18, 2009

Sydney

April 2008

I love Sydney. I had an amazing whirlwind six days in New South Wales, with wonderful Australian hospitality care of GSB roommate Tristen and her family and Dartmouth expat Kelly

Facebook album
Part 1 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048073&l=bfc2c&id=502186
Part 2 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2048074&l=df02e&id=502186

Restaurants: Ripples (cas harbor side restaurant), Café Sydney (overlooking Harbor), Bowers Restaurant (at Manly Beach, on water), Almond Bar (cozy Med place), Longrain (in Surry Hills, my fave, SO good)

Echoes in the Blue Mountains - http://www.echoeshotel.com.au/

Day 1 – Thursday
With great luck, I had an empty United flight to Sydney where I got to sleep across the seats. The ultimate red-eye, the flight leaves SFO on Tuesday 11pm and gets in to Sydney on Thursday at 7am. Tristen picked me up and I got to freshen up at her parents’ home in northern suburb Riverview where we were staying, before I head into North Sydney with her to work. Turns out the Southern Cross office is just about across the street from the Cisco building. I had a lovely lunch on the north side of the harbor at Ripples with Tristen (new Australian food – zucchini blossoms stuffed with cheese, yum) before venturing out to Sydney.

I took a quick ferry over from the north side to Circular Quay (pronounced “key”) for $5.50 AU, though I learned that the ferry ticket machines only give change in coins (not good when you insert your $50 bill…) Circular Quay is the big ferry terminal on the harbor and where the iconic Sydney Opera House is. They do one hour tours of the Opera House in many languages, so I signed up for the English tour ($35 AU). I learned about Utzon, the Danish architect, and the history of the performance hall. It is such an amazing structure and the theatres are great. There are five total and we got to see two of the smaller ones and the North Foyer symphony hall. Swan Lake was actually going on at the same time in the other large hall, definitely a living, active facility. I had a nice walk around the adjoining Botanical Gardens before training back to North Sydney.

After some wine with Tristen’s co-workers, we went back to Circular Quay for a wonderful dinner at Café Sydney overlooking the harbor. We had a great flight of Australian white wines with “bugs”, the Australian word for these huge yummy crustaceans.

Day 2 – Friday
Tristen took the day off and we drove out to Manly Beach, where Tristen had signed us up for surf lessons in North Steyne. Unfortunately, there were tiny waves, but the instructor let us pass on lessons and gave us wet suits and boards for the hour for free. Water was really nice and we bobbed around, with some surfing, then over to Manly proper and had a nice walk and lunch at Bowers Restaurant on the water. It was perfect – we had rock oysters with ginger and lime, as Bloody Mary shooters, and natural, and a great crab spaghettini and salt and pepper squid. After some digesting, we found a spot at Shelly Beach, and I went out for a brisk open water swim. The water is really clear so you see tons of fish near the shore. It was a little darker when you swam out further and I turned around when I realized there was no one for hundreds of meters and I couldn’t see around me. Scary. I also had a minor scare when all of a sudden, I could see a huge school of tiny fish on the bottom swimming away from me and I was afraid there was a big fish that they knew about that I didn’t. But it was ok J

After some sun time, we drove to Belmoral Beach, which is smaller but beautiful with the finest sand felt so good to walk on barefoot. We had tea and raspberry gateau at Bather’s Pavilion

Ironically, the NY Times Travel Dispatch did an article on the Blue Mountains while we were there – “Going Green in Australia’s Blue Mountains.” See page three for a write-up of Katoomba and Echoes!

Tsukiji 築地

*UPDATE: Sad, due to some raucous foreigners, Tsukiji will be closed to tourists from 12/15-1/17 (Japanese article)

I have written a ton about Tokyo and the fish market as well as the Tsukiji restaurants. Had another amazing meal at Sushi-bun, yum :) Adding a video of the auction from 6am this morning!

Rio de Janeiro

September 2008

I took a five day trip to Rio de Janeiro with my parents, brother and his best friend Jesse.

Cliff note version:
- Facebook album [60 pics]
- Ofoto album [414 pics]
- Food blog: Brazil [12 entries]

I arrived at GIG at 7am off of a 10 hour connection from Atlanta. After fairly smooth customs and baggage claim, I was met by a car service from the Sheraton Rio where my family and I were staying near Leblon. The driver, Celso was very nice and attentive, which is good since we had an hour drive through rush hour traffic. I was too early to check in, and too cheap to pay to do so, so I left my bags and head out to Leblon until my parents, brother and Jesse got in.

The walk to Leblon from the Sheraton along the sidewalk is about 15 minutes for a normal paced person (20 min for me). It was a bit overcast so not a wonderful view but I imagine Leblon and Ipanema beach would be gorgeous along the walkway. I walked along the beach a bit, saw some surfers, a beach volleyball school and huts with coconuts.

Crossed two blocks into Av Ataulfo de Paiva, which the concierge said was a main drag with stores and restaurants. It was a bit hit or miss with the stores (got one pair of cute sandals at a mall like place, and went back later for more with the ‘rents where I was a bit more successful at the shopping plaza). Stopped at Bibi Sucos for some açai, then picked up a coconut for some juice on my walk back.

With the parents, brother and his friend Jesse in tow, we walked back into town for lunch at Fellini, a buffet style ‘per kilo’ lunch place. We did some shopping, walking off our late lunch, before stopping at SaLitre, a super cute wine bar for a bottle of Catena chardonnay. After a little siesta (I know wrong country), we were off to a wonderful dinner at Zaza, where we had our introduction to cachaça, a sugar cane based liquor. Wow is pretty tough in shot form, and more commonly used in the Brazilian national cocktail, the caipirinha. We had an hour before we were getting picked up and wandered across Garota de Ipanema, where we had chope (draft beer) and garlic chicken hearts, yum!

My dad arranged a full day tour for our second day. We got picked up at the hotel at 8:45am by Yoshida-san, our Japanese tour guide (my brother and I translated for Jesse) and Paolo, our driver. While it seemed excessive at first, it was the best bang for buck for getting a complete tour of Rio.

We started with the famous, and New Seven Wonder, Cristo Redentor on top of Corcovado. It is about a 30R fee I think, to take the cog train to the top. Sit on the right side on the way up for a spectacular 10 second view. At the last stop, we walked up a few flights of steps to the back of the enormous Christ (there is also an elevator which my parents opted for). This place is amazing – we didn’t get to test but it is said that you can see Christ from anywhere in Rio. Check out the 360 view on youtube. It was not too packed at top, and we spent time taking many many pictures of the Cristo, ourselves and the views before heading to the next site. The train down had samba entertainment, and both me and my mom got pulled up to dance (youtube).

We were on an early train, which was the way to do Corcovado – train was totally packed on the way down and there were people at the bottom waiting for over an hour to go up. Also, Yoshida-san said the sun is positioned for better photos in the morning and there is more likely to be haze in the afternoon which obscures the phenomenal views.

Maracanã Football Stadium was our next stop. It is the largest soccer stadium in the world – I think Rio has four teams that play in the city, Pan American games were here last year and the World Cup finals will come back here in 2014. The entrance way has a Hollywood stars-like patio with legendary soccer players names and molds of their footprints. 20R admission to go up to the seats, the locker room and the field. Along the tour are life size photographs where we had some fun pretending to be part of the action.

Then we saw the locker rooms, which are quite bare, though it was cool to see the Astroturf warm up room with a full size goal and lounge chairs that pull down during halftime. We also got to be the only people on the field, or the little cordoned off part that you can visit. Next time, I want to go to a game!

We drove through Lapa and few other neighborhoods and stopped at Sambódromo, the open stadium where Carnival parade of dancers and singers happens each year in February. Another ‘next time in Rio’ activity – I would love to be here for Carnival and experience the festivities at Sambódromo, watching teams of thousands of dancers and singers in competition through the night.

We passed the aqueducts and stopped at the crazy new church downtown before lunch at a Choperia Brazooka, a beer house (and samba club at night) where we tried the traditional Saturday meal of feijeoda, a black-bean dish cooked with salted pork and other meats. Quite yummy, along with some chope, or draft beer.

Our final stop on the tour was Pão de Açúcar, or Sugarloaf, which you get to by taking two cable cars, strung between the top and a nearby peak. It is the other famous tourist spot for magnificent 360-degree views of Rio de Janeiro. We could see Corcovado, though the afternoon brought some haze and all of the views were a bit misty looking. We saw little ‘pocket monkeys’ who were cute, though I suspect less friendly than we think. There were crazy winds up at the top, and also people settling into the benches and tables with beers as they waited for the sunset, which is supposed to be gorgeous from the summit.

We had our first churrascaria meal that night at Espaço Brasa Leblon. Meat was good, though I actually think I liked the salad bar best. After several drinks and bottles of wine, my parents head home, and my brother, Jesse and I hit Saturday night in Lapa, where all of the samba clubs and bars are. We went to Rio Scenarium, which I think may be somewhat touristy, but we had a ton of fun, drinking and dancing into the wee hours. We got some fun footage from the club!




September 7th is Brazilian Independence Day, which is celebrated each year with a military parade on Av Presidente Vargas. It starts at the church Candelária at one end of the street. The cab let my parents and I out at the church, where we walked by the staging area with rows of tanks and military personnel, before settling on the sidewalk with some locals. It was kind of surreal to see that much firepower in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Every soldier was carrying some rifle or bayonet or machine gun or rocket launcher (if they were not in the band) and were fully dressed in camouflage gear, face paint down to boots, not to mention the tanks – I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the enormous contraptions that thundered down the street. Every 20 minutes or so, helicopters, fighter jets, transport planes or something of the sort would scream overhead. The parade lasted a few hours and included different branches of the military (army, navy, air force), MP, national, prefecture, and local police, SWAT teams, riot cops, canine forces, firefighting units, and finally the cavalry. Now that was amazing… we were wondering why the horses were lined up but waiting for so long after the firemen. All of a sudden, they start galloping – hundred of riders, not all in control, or maybe the horses were freaking out. You have to see the video to understand how crazy it was. (Also makes sense that the horses were last, they left a lot of crap in their wake)

After the official parade, the civilian protesters and political parties started marching, but pretty fast, because they were then followed by an extremely efficient, official clean up crew of huge sweeping trucks, hosing vehicles and garbage pick up crews. Overall, if you are ever in Rio for Sept 7, the parade is very cool and I think quite a local experience. We were definitely the only tourists there.

We happened on the Centro Cultural Banco Do Brasil, CCBB when we went in searching for bathrooms and found this cool cultural center, free to public with some exhibits. We walked through a photography one that were great prints that had to do with land and water, beautiful shots from around the world, though it was also cool because a lot were from places we knew like NYC, Quechee VT, and several European cities.

We finally found a cap and were dropped off at Praça General Osório in Ipanema where the Hippie Fair (or Feira de Arte de Ipanema) happens every Sunday fro 9am-5pm. It takes up the whole park and has jewelry, leatherwork, furniture, clothes, art, and any other chochkies you could want. I got a very nice leather laptop case backpack (paid a bit for it but it is really nice), several wristlet clutches for 15R (~$10), and a few purses for the same, a 5R necklace, and several paintings for 25R.

My brother and Jesse spent the day beaching at Copacabana. I definitely missed out on the beach vacation because we went home after the market, and it rained for the remainder of the trip. But they had fun.

We dined at Osteria Dell’Angelo in Ipanema that night (great squid ink risotto) and called it an early night.

On the rainy Monday morning, my parents and I head to Museu H Stern, on Rua Visconde de Pirajá. They offer free admission and transport from your hotel for a 15 minute tour of gem mining and the process of turning them into jewelry plus a showcase of the jewels (and consultation in case you are in the market for some nice jewelry – btw Brazil and the US have a nice deal where Brazilian gems, of which there is a specified list, are duty-free and you don’t pay Brazilian taxes). Then Take and Jesse joined us for our first light meal at Via Sete around the corner.

After a relaxing afternoon, we set off for our last meal at Porçao Ipanema, one of a few Porçao churrascaria restaurants. The salad bar was a little less robust than Espaco Brasa, but the meat was phenomenal. We were quite happy and full after a few hours. The waiters are super friendly (as they are generally in Rio), and we learned to ask for meat malpasado, which got us rare, bloody pieces of animal.

We then head to Academia de Cachaça in Leblon for our last taste of the toxic Brazilian liquor. The spot was a little shady (we definitely saw some drug deals across the street), but they have an amazing collection of cachaça and we ordered a number of shots of different cachaças as well as mixed drinks (I liked the shot with honey and brown sugar). We ended the night quite contented :)

San Diego

*Here is great advice for things to do in San Diego from my wonderful roommate Eric*

Downtown has a lot of typical city stuff - it is the financial center of the area with a lot of tall buildings, restaurants, bars, and clubs. In general people go to downtown for fun when they want to go clubbing (there are some cool ones!) or go to a baseball game.

As for places to surf, Mission Beach would probably be your best bet. I haven't rented equipment there before, but I'm sure you won't have any problems if you go there. In Mission Beach there's a popular bar where bands play almost nightly - it's called Canes. There is also an informal restaurant upstairs where you can get food/drinks overlooking the beach. Anyway, almost next door and in the same parking lot, there is a surf shop - I'm sure you can rent equipment there.

• Sea World
  Cool to see if you've never been there - maybe budget a half day…
  
• Mission Beach area has nice beaches
  See above… it also has a nice area to walk by the beach
  
• Just north of that is Pacific Beach, which is basically the party neighborhood. About 15 min drive from Sheraton
  Yes, PB is where all of the 20 somethings party. It is well known in the SD area as the party town. You can have a good time pretty much any night of the week. If you go on a weekend night, expect some lines… PB Bar and Grill is probably the most popular place, so it would be good to get a feel for what the area is like. Moondoggies is more mellow and good for early drinks…
  
• North of that is La Jolla, which is a really really nice area that is super pretty, if you have a car might be worth driving around. Good shopping too apparently.
  La Jolla is a ritzy town, where all of the rich people who want to live near the beach live. Parts of it are really pretty, so it might be worth a drive. The very north end (La Jolla Village Drive) is where UCSD is - it's pretty and Scripps, which is right there, has the nicest beach. Just south of there, around Prospect St is where most of the shopping is. It is also a pretty area…
  
• I think he said Sunset Cliffs is nice for beaches
  Sunset Cliffs doesn't have great "beaches", but it does have beautiful landscapes. Basically it's where small cliffs meet the ocean. If the swell is big, there will be a lot of surfers near the cliffs. Definitely worth the drive to check the area out.
  
• The harbor is pretty to walk around as well, downtown, actually near the Westin. Marina Park and stuff.
  Yup, that's about right - near the civic center/ball park is also nice. See above for more about downtown.
  
• Old Town San Diego is right on the other side of the airport from the Sheraton, and he hasn’t been there much, but is supposed to have amazing Mexican food.
  That's right too. Old Town is just south of where the 5 and 8 freeways intersect.
  
• Drive 15 miles south and you are in Tijuana
  Be sure to bring your passport if you decide to go! And be really safe if you decide to go! Tijuana is pretty dirty. I never hung out in Tijuana. Ensenada or even Rosarito are nicer than Tijuana.

One more thing - if you want to drive north of La Jolla, the beach towns north of there, including Solana Beach, Cardiff, and Encinitas are really cool and quaint.