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Archives for June, 2018

Not Paris

June 19th, 2018

China has a bit of a thing for building extravagant replicas of western landmarks. One I found out about recently is this Paris-alike in the outer suburbs of Hangzhou, complete with Eiffel tower.

And these residential buildings modelled on the Champs Elysees. I actually rather like it, it transforms what would otherwise be an utterly unremarkable suburb into a mini tourist hotspot. And it’s probably quite fun to live in too.

Shanghai apparently has “Thames town” which is modelled on a traditional English market town, so might have to visit that some day too.

All Rain All The Time

June 3rd, 2018

I’ve discovered something very important about the summer here: every day it’s either 30+ degrees, or raining, or both. This rather limits the potential for outdoor activities so I’ve been going to a lot of museums recently. Which is a shame because I actually found some really good places west of Hangzhou to go hiking.

On Saturday it was raining less than usual and only 20-odd degrees so seemed perfect to go out of a walk. There’s a network of well-maintained paths that connect all the mountain ridges here. An information board said there’s 108km of them, but I got pretty tired after a few hours due to the extreme amount of up-and-down.

The route I was on links up with the Lingyin temple I visited back in March, so you could take the cable car up/down if you’re feeling lazy.