We had a Pessach miracle - we got off the train in China - in fact the city looked very rundown and ugly around there, went to lunch in a downtown restaurant (nothing to write home about) and then went for a couple more kilometers and were transported - either to Swtizerland or to heaven (the saying here is that there is paradise in heaven and Suzhou and Hangzhou on earth).
Our hotel is extremely fancy and is located on the shore of the Western Lake, which has the most beautiful and meticulously groomed park around it. The place swarmed with people (mainly Chinese tourists) and not a scrap of paper on the ground! And the lay-out and gardening are really unbelievably beautiful - they city must emply thousands of people to keep this huge pak (probably larger than Central Park) so well groomed.
We took a boat ride on the lake which we would have enjoyed more if the woman who was blaring away into a megaphone on deck would have fallen into the lake - her group looked quite unhappy too.
Then we continued to a tea village and plantation (where they have the 'best green tea in China'). The view around there is amazing - steep mountains covered with tea bushes and dotted with people picking the leaves. It is of course highly commercialized and the only way to get rid of the young woman who gave us tea and demonstrated things was to buy 1 can... But the scenery was definitely worth the investment.
Close by we looked at the Pagoda of Six Harmonies, and then returned to the hotel. Our guide here is Leon (Xu, pronounced Shoe) - nice and has excellent English - he spent 6 months in Madison Wisconsin as an exchange student.
We took a walk along the lake to find a restuarant and ended up in a strange place - an exquisite tea house in a very Japanses looking setting. They had a buffet there with very unusual buffet things like nuts and candy, but also noodles and eggrolls and such and the whole meal was dirt cheap. We still do not understand what kind of place this really was but it was very nice and tasty and different from the regular Chinese meals.
And finally - there is a partial photo of Eyal on SummitClimb: http://www.everestnews.com/Summitclimb2005/everestnepal2005uaa04232005.htm
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