Checked out of the hotel this morning. We left our bags in the care of the concierge, so we could do a little more sight-seeing.
Took a series of trips on motorized boats to visit some quaint little islands in West Lake. The first island was a very small one featuring a pagoda. The second island, named Three Pools Reflecting the Moon, was much larger, and had three very still pools of water, lotus flowers, and gardens. Final stop was a park on the shore way down the lake. We saw peacocks here.
Took a tourist train back to our part of town, via a very long causeway across the lake. We took a taxi to a train ticket office to get our tickets back to Shanghai, but the train was full. Not even standing room. This was probably because it’s Sunday, so people are returning for work. We decided to just stay in HangZhou for one more night.
Returned to the hotel and rebooked our room. At this point, Sabrina had a bit of a headache, probably from all the noise of the city. So, she lay down for a nap, while I read.
Later we went for dinner. Dinner today was a bit of a disappointment. We just sniffed out a place that looked promising from outside, but it didn’t turn out to be very good. We sat on a patio on an upper floor within view of the lake, which was cool. But there were lots of fruitflies, which kept landing on the food. We had Szechuan-style green beans (a constant favourite of mine), picked cabbage, some kind of seasoned corned beef, and sliced fish in tradition Szechuan hot sauce. Oh, and Sabrina had a big pile of snails (disgusting.) The fish in hot sauce, which we have often at China Legend, was not very good. Fish was all bony. Between the bony fish, and fruit flies landing on the food all the time, it was not a spectacular experience.
After that, we walked across to the lake shore. Found a spot to photograph a panorama series of the lake at night (handheld, I never did get the tripod). Then retreated to some tables for beer (Corona this time, enough with the weak local beer), and a milkshake.
Returned to hotel to sleep.