Thursday, February 24, 2011

Hang Zhou, China

Hang Zhou, China. Famous for its ginormous (Unless you're a marathon runner you might find it rather difficult to see everything in a day) West Lake situated a close 4 to 5 blocks from the city, with plenty of tourist attractions and heritage sites speckled all around it.

A modern and booming city of China naught but an hour's train ride from Shanghai on the bullet train, fully equipped with plenty of malls, nice hotels and plenty of night markets and street bazaars to keep you occupied when not sightseeing.


This busker had the brilliant ingenuity to strap a huge speaker to the back of his moped acting as an amplifier for his guitar. Thats not all he had, if you look closely he also had a mixer for it! All powered by a small car battery.

Oh yes, he sang really good too.


I spotted this on the way back to my hotel. If you pronounce it wrong it actually says Cibai (Ji Bai) Group! For all of my non-Malaysian readers out there, that actually means pussy in a Chinese dialect (Hokkien). HAHA



Grade A Green Tea leaves of Hangzhou. Famous for its green tea, Hang Zhou has a local legend about a Dragon that lives in well and this well contains not water but green tea.


The Shanghai Clock tower of the building where they use to have horse races. Refurbished now to be Shanghai's Museum of Art. A must see that showcases local Chinese talent of the highest respect.

Old before New.

There's a park (The People's Park) in Shanghai filled with these little ads. As much as China has developed and become a major economic power in the last couple of years, many traditions are still apparent throughout. These are actually ads for arranged marriages. There are even agents who sit around all day to attend to interested "customers".


Shanghai Grand Theater. It was so big it took almost forever to walk around it.

Everybody see's the tall, shiny, glass buildings in China's fast-growing economic hubs but what a lot of people don't know is that those buildings were only build as a facade. A clever and quick solution to quickly develop, hiding behind them in little alleys houses and residences of what use to be China all over.

The Chinese Museum of Traditional Medicine.


A little isle in the West Lake.


A favorite Chinese past time. Mahjong in the park.

An elderly group of Chinese people were actually spending their time just chilling out and singing old songs in the park, like kids do these days with guitars.

This has got to be one of the best, most cost-efficient brooms I've ever seen. It's made out of leaves and twigs and basically dried up stuff from plants and covers a whole lot more area than do conventional brooms. Talk about innovation AND going green at the same time!