A Tale of Two [Chinese] Cities
This past weekend, our team travelled to the ancient Chinese cities of Hangzhou and Wuzhen. We started our journey on Saturday morning when we took a high-speed train to the city of Hangzhou. Upon our arrival in Hangzhou, we hailed a cab and began our commute to the hostel where we would be staying for the evening. At some point during the ride, it became readily apparent that traffic in the city of Hangzhou was on a different level of hectic, and we were informed shortly thereafter that Hangzhou traffic is among the worst in the entire world. Indeed, it was fairly insane: we constantly drove between lanes (and cars) as well as frequently coming close to collisions with the droves of motor scooters that travelled in all directions like great flocks of birds dispersing in the air.
After we reached the hostel, we travelled to a beautiful lake in the middle of the bustling city called Westlake. There, we boarded a Chinese houseboat to reach an island within the lake that actually hosted its own island within a lake. Bear with me here: we travelled to an island within a lake within an island within a lake. Has anyone seen Inception???? Trust me, it’s still equally confusing to me, even after visiting this paradigm of enigmas. All in all, the day was beautiful, and we all had a wonderful time exploring this ancient Chinese landmark.
The following day, we took an early morning train to another famous Chinese city, the historic water town of Wuzhen. After spending a good amount of time haggling with drivers at the train station in an effort to work out a decent price, we took a large van to the actual town, where we found an enormous amount of Chinese visitors already busy exploring the site. We were nevertheless undeterred from our excursion and happily explored the streets of the millennia old city. The city itself originally sprang up along the banks of a great river and eventually carved out its own series of canals that now crisscross the entire area. After a day of exploring the streets and waterways of this fascinating place, we boarded a small, gondola-like boat for a serene boat ride back to the city entryway.
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