West Lake shrouded by rain and fog.

The region we are in — Hangzhou — is famous for its water scenery, and we saw plenty of it today, and not all just on the ground. We awoke to a gray, chilly morning with a light drizzle, which, because of the geographical features of Hangzhou and the waters of the West Lake, created a fog that obscured much of the skyline. The rain could not spoil our plans for the day, however.

We set off for West Lake, the attraction that has been drawing people to Hangzhou for centuries. We took a cruise around the lake and sailed past some of the man-made islands. The lake is renowned for its beauty, but much of the scenery was obscured by the fog. Fortunately, West Lake is also known for its beauty when it’s foggy. An official from centuries ago once compared the lake to a woman whose beauty is apparent no matter what clothes she wore, and on this day, she wore gray.

A statue at Lingyin Temple.

After the cruise, we visited Lingyin Temple, one of the most famous Buddhist temples in China. It featured many impressive bronze Buddha statues, including a hall containing the likenesses of the 500 Buddhist “saints”. The walk from the front entrance to the main buildings went past rocky hillsides with Buddha reliefs. The rain had picked up in intensity by this point, yet there were still tons of people in the temple, offering incense, praying, and snapping pictures. The most interesting sight at the temple for me, however, was a basketball court in one of the courtyards, which sparked the image of monks playing pickup basketball in their robes.

We then paid a quick visit to the mausoleum of Yue Fei, a Song dynasty general who is an iconic hero among the Chinese people. After lunch, we headed to a village famous for producing Long Jing tea. As expected, this was another stop on the itinerary designed to get the tourist to spend some money. However, this was actually kind of enjoyable. The top-grade tea the village offered, which it does not export and therefore is not available anywhere else, was only about $20-$30 more expensive than the Long Jing tea my parents usually buy, which is of a lower grade. Courtney also sampled some tea candy and various dried snacks in the giftshop.

The watertown of Wuzhen

The afternoon consisted of a lot of driving as we went from Hangzhou back to Shanghai. Along the way, we stopped into Wuzhen, a small watertown that’s almost Venice-like. Fortunately, the rain had let up by now, though the sky was still a dull gray. We took advantage of the last few minutes of sunlight to stroll along the town’s narrow, stone-covered road. The buildings were charming, but also very old and at times almost dilapidated. Yet this was’t just some historic area preserved for posterity’s sake. In fact, many people still live in the town, a lifestyle I simply cannot imagine.

A couple more hours’ drive from Wuzhen took us back into Shanghai. We had dinner at a restaurant right next to the Bund, then took a quick spin in this historic area. Our tour guide showed us the lookout point where we could see all the skyscrapers and neons across the Huangpu River. He said this spot used to be the most romantic in the Bund.

The view from the Bund.

It’s hard to believe, but today marks the halfway point of our trip in China. The time has simply flown by, but we’ve had a lot of fun. Here’s hoping the pace slows down a lot, as we are a couple days away from returning to our hometown of Guangzhou and staying there for a week.