11/16/2005 10:33:00 PM|||The Zen Master|||
West Lake is considered the traditional (and official) heart of Hangzhou, and I figured I'd head there first in my attempt to wrap my head around this city as quickly and thoroughly as possible. I had not at all imagined that it would actually be as beautiful as it proved today: I spent over five hours walking around it, interspersed with stops at cafes and visits to just two of the dozens of peripheral sites that surround it. In that time, I only made it halfway around--I think the perimeter is probably about eight or nine miles, if not more. In all the statistics I've gathered so far, I've only found the area of the lake in square kilometers, which I don't remember and I'm not about to look up again right now.
I was surprised by the large percentage of the people gathered around the lake who seemed like locals--although it is the middle of November and a weekday to boot. I was one of very few foreign faces in the crowd, certainly, but many of the Chinese just seemed to be living out their daily lives on the lakeshore, and not snapping pictures with goofy expressions and amusing poses like they'd most likely be doing if they were not Hangzhouren.
I've posted only my favorites of the many, many photos I took today. With a digital camera, it meant nothing to take over 140 pictures in the course of six or seven hours, and I know that as I spend more time here, I'll become innoculated to the splendor of this city. I wanted to make sure to capture my original impressions of awe, as I've failed to do in most of the places in which I've spent long amounts of time (Beijing, and Madrid, and Cuzco, and Salamanca--basically every foreign city in which I've spent a month or more).
|||113215316574480838|||Welcome to West Lake
