Author Topic: Hangzhou in the Spring 四月杭州 (2012) (Read 144957 times)

hangchoi · « **Reply #30 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:21:12 »

Walking up the hill of the Lingyin theme park, there is a YungFu temple. This one is nice and looks more like a real temple. Quiet and peace. It was built in West Jin, so the outlook is totally different from what we saw in Hangzhou....

From the entrance to the main temple, there were not many visitors and you can find a lot of sculptures which make you feel peaceful....

hangchoi · « **Reply #31 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:24:13 »

After our souls were cleaned by the buddha, we went to Tea Museum. This museum is not too big but it gives me a good lesson about tea from planting to brewing.

hangchoi · « **Reply #32 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:27:09 »

The museum also displays different types of tea and some exhibits are about tea business.....

hangchoi · « **Reply #33 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:30:13 »

We did not buy any tea as the price is unreasonably high. Outside the museum there is a large tea-yard with rows of tea tree. On the way we go to lunch, we passed through a lot of tea-yards and some of them were planted along the contours of the hill (similar to vineyard??)

hangchoi · « **Reply #34 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:34:28 »

The next stop after lunch was to visit the house of a famous businessman in late Qing Dynasty. This guy (紅頂商人，胡雪巖) was an important businessman at that time. I read a novel about him when I was an undergraduate. His flat was more than 63000 square feet.

hangchoi · « **Reply #35 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:37:51 »

His house was built in Qing style and had 2 storeys. Only the lower level was open for visitors.

hangchoi · « **Reply #36 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:40:14 »

The house has quite a lots of corridor and rooms, which made us like walking in a maze....

hangchoi · « **Reply #37 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:42:50 »

Part of his house was the recreation area with lots of artificial hills, ponds, etc......

hangchoi · « **Reply #38 on:** 18 April 2012, 00:46:36 »

The first picture is a view from the tower to the pond. The second one is the artificial cave, which is claimed to be the biggest artificial cave in China. The third one is one of the various rooms for the businessman's concubine. Now this is the place for selling souvenir.