Hangzhou April 2

The Hangzhou area is noted for several famous water towns which were build on many of the canals in and around Hangzhou. We decided to buy a tour to XItang, one of the water towns closest to where we were staying. The tour started really early so we got up and around in plenty of time. We went to the designated hotel and amongst a crowd of several dozen Chinese waiting for tours we boarded our bus. Turned out there would be around ten or so tourists on this trip. Most of the Chinese tourists were headed to Huangshan in Anhui Province. Nice uncrowded bus with nice people for the trip.

29_XitangPose

Right away I began to take pictures as we entered the town. This was obviously the real deal, although it was apparent that there was a bustling tourist trade built up in the town. For the most part, the town appeared to be authentic with the people doing the selling actually living in the town.

30_Xitangfirstview

Ah, how pictures are worth a thousand or two million words. I took over 500 pictures with my Canon 7D! Check the ones I chose for this blog to get a feel for what Xitang is all about.

31_ClosedDoor

32_DarkHallway

33_Darkhallway2

34_Doorwayopen

35_Riverway

36_Tallburner

37_Walkway

38_Streetscene

39_Doorview

40-Courtyard

41_Streetscene

42_xitangteahouse

If you can't tell, I was also taking a few pictures with my new GoPro Hero 960 camera. It does a 180 degree fisheye and is the smallest camera of its kind in the world. The pictures from it are amazing but the video is even more amazing! Can you tell which pictures came from the GoPro Hero?

43_Riverscene

44_skooter

45_bottles

46_PortraitRiverBG

47_xitanbridge

48_MoreBridge

49_MoreSceneRiver

50_BloomsBoat

Our visit ended with a boat trip on the canal to the exit area of the town. The boat trip was not that expensive and gave one a different view of the town of Xitang. A great ending!

On the way back to Hangzhou we stopped at a silk shop and another store which I do not remember. For those traveling in China on tours, this is just SOP (Standard Operating Procedures). Most of the time these stops are worthless but occasionally they do stop at interesting stores. The stops on this trip were . . . . boring!