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The impression of Hangzhou:
In 2006 the World Leisure Organization awards Hangzhou "the Capital of Eastern Leisure"; in 2007 the World Traveling Organization awards Hangzhou "the Best Traveling City of China"; in China Hangzhou is called "a heaven in the real world"; The Italy traveler Marco Polo had already called Hangzhou "a most beautiful and magnificent city of the world" about 800 years ago. The mountains and rivers of Hangzhou are expressing special ideal leisure condition here and there.
Walking around West Lake, sitting in the teahouse, taking footbath, testing delicacies, you can feel delicacy and idle of Hangzhou's leisureness everywhere. This city is the best place to understand the leisure of Chinese.
Because of the thousands years filling with beauty and leisure in Hangzhou, all legends about love in China seemed to take place here. The famous story Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai which spread nowadays is called Romeo and Juliet of China. Another legend about the love between a beautiful white snake girl and a scholar Xu Xian is also a classic love story widely known in China. |
The impression of West Lake:
West Lake is a poem, a natural painting, and a beautiful and moving story. Whether the people who have been living here for years or just the travelers passing in a hurry, they all fall in love with this unique beauty.
In spring March orioles begin to fly and grass fields are turning to green. Along the Su causeway and White causeway willow trees are green and peach trees blossom. The waves are sparkling in the middle of the lake, and several boats are floating here and there. Looked from the distance the mountains are partly visible. They are half verdant and half black. Walking along the dike, you will be astonished by what you have seen, or you will even be infatuated with the beautiful scenery and wonder whether you get yourself in fairylands.
The beautiful scene of West Lake appears not only in spring days. In the summer days you can see lotuses all around with the blue sky and green leaves; in the autumn nights you can take a look three pools mirroring the moon; while in the winter you can smell the fragrance of the red plums. What's more, you could even hear the orioles crying in willow trees and dim fogs or appreciate the towers in the drizzle. In different time you come here, the different charm of the scene you will feel. |
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Around the West Lake in Hangzhou,
there are many museums, and through them you can understand the culture of 5,000 years
in Hangzhou and in China, what's more, all the museum here are free for all the visitors.
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| Zhejiang Province Museum: It is located in the south foot of Lonely Hill by West Lake, and was built in 1929, when the West Lake Exposition which was famous in latter China was held here, and people in that time called it is "the celebration of the world, the pageant of hill and lake". The first museum of province in our country---West Lake Museum---- was built based on that. Later, its name was changed to Zhejiang province Museum, and it was one of the earliest museums in our country. Lately in 1990, the museum was extendedly built, and the buildings of the new museum were courtyard style. This museum is of literate human ores, and is mainly used for collection, exhibition, the study of historical cultural relics and painting and calligraphy. It contains over 100 thousand collections, of which, the characteristic things are historical celadon porcelains and paintings, and the culture relics from the Hemudu culture site and the Liangzhu culture site. There are special halls of culture relics from Hemudu culture site and Liangzhu culture site and the celadon porcelains of ancient Zhejiang. Recent years, the whole museum has been rebuilt, and it now contains preserving section---the cluster of Wenlan Ge old buildings, rebuilt section----the old museum site, extended built section. The exhibition of the museum contains five main sections, which are historical culture relics section, paintings and calligraphy section, celadon porcelains section, artificial section and international present section. |
South Song Dynasty Guanyao Museum of Hangzhou: It is located in the south of the West Lake beauty spot, in the south foot of Zhakou Turtle Hill. It is an archaizing museum base on the prototype of the style of buildings in Song Dynasty. There are two sections of exhibiting hall and historical site.
The exhibiting hall contains three exhibiting rooms. In the first exhibiting room, there shows the historical delicacy porcelain; in the second exhibiting room, you can see the history of ancient porcelains in China and the conditions of society, politics, and economic base; in the third, it shows something about the study of archaizing porcelains in China, and some high-quality samples which are imitated the porcelains from the Guan, Ge, Ru, Ding, Zhu the five famous caves in Song Dynasty and Yue, Jian caves, using modern techniques.
In the historical site, there are workshops historical site, which covers 1,700 square meters and protected aisle of Dragon Cave. And that is the biggest protected building in our country. The slot, training porcelain clay plat, porcelain vehicle tunnel, glaze urn, fire place, clay stack and cave fire place are all the tools used in that year, and they show the flow of manufacturing, so they have extremely high value of study.
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| Historical cultural heritage |
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| Tongqinyu Traditional Chinese medicine Museum: It is located in the well alley in the foot of Wu Hill, and is a courtyard style drugstore built by Hu Xueyan, a Red hat merchant in Qing Dynasty, in 1878. It is simple and unsophisticated, elegance, resplendent and magnificent with a classical Qing Dynasty style. In 1988, it was regarded as the key cultural relic preservation organ. It is the only national traditional Chinese medicine museum in our country, and it has the fame of wizardly science palace, glories cultural of medicament. Tongqinyu Traditional Chinese medicine Museum was built based on Tongqinyu Hall old buildings. It opened in 1991, and covers 2700 square meters. The whole museum was divided into five sections: the first section is exhibiting hall, it tells us about the past famous druggists and doctors, the origination of drug, the phylogeny of medication, the intercommunion of west and east on medication, the contributes and status of Zhejiang in the development of Chinese drugs; the second section contains traditional Chinese medicine handcraft work shop room and interest room, there, the old drug maker can display the traditional drug making techniques, and the tourists can make drugs by themselves, and fell the interests of making drugs; the third section is out patient room of traditional Chinese medicine and health care; the forth section is the room of medical food; the filth section is ~~~~~. Here, you can not only enjoy the traditional drug made in the interest room, but also ask for specialist for medical care, choose high quality Chinese traditional drugs, and taste the medical food which has the strange effects of body guard, improving your health condition and expanding your life.¡£ |
Lingyin Temple It is one of the famous inceense burning temples in China and thousands of good men and believing women go to Lingyin Temple to burning incense for happiness.
Jingci Temple It is the temple where Jigong Monk cultivated himself according to religious doctrine. The sounding of Jingci Temple bell is an important sight of Hangzhou, a grand cermony of welcoming New Year with sonding bell is held every new year of Hangzhou in the Jingci Temple. |
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| Hangzhou cuisine |
Aunty Song's Fish Slice Soup: This famous dish is prepares with the main material of mandarin fish and eggs. It has been famous from Nan Song Dynasty to present with a history of more than 800 years.
Dongpo Pork (braised pork): Su Dongpo liked to eat pork. In the third year of Yuan Feng, when he demoted to be an official in Hangzhou, he wrote a poem, "a poem of pork" for fun, it goes " Pork in Hangzhou is good and very cheap, the rich don't like to eat it and the poor don't know how to cook it, boil it slowly with a little water, and it will be tasty when it is cooked with enough time; have a bowl of the meat in the morning to make the whole family full. " In the fourth year of Yuan, when Su Shi was an official in Hangzhou, he built dams and bridges dredged the West Lake. Common people brought pork and brown wine to recognize the service for the procurator. Su Shi asked his servants to slice the pork into square and cook it with wine and his cooking method and distributed the pork for laborers to eat. The laborers felt the pork was soft and tasty after they ate it and they called it as Dongpo Pork.
After that, many restaurants in Hangzhou cooked it in the same way. Up to now, Dongpo Pork has a history of more than 900 years. The method for cooking, select pieces pork belly with rock candy and sauce as condiments and with brown wine instead of water, put block shape pork with Chinese onion covering the bottom in a terrine. Then, sealed the terrine and steamed it. The pork cooked in this way will be soft and not break, keep the original taste and be fat but not oily. |
West lake vinegared fish: It is a special dish of famous dishes in Hangzhou. Now, the restaurant which is most famous for cooking West lake vinegared fish is a hundred year old Lou Wai Lou at the south of Lonely Mountain.
Beggar's roast chicken: A beggar driftagged in Jiang Nan, one day he fainted for cold and hungry. His fellow sufferer stole a small hen but he was worried for not pan and kitchen range to cook it. Then, he rapped the hen with mud and put it fire to bake. When they peeled the mud and ate the hen, they found by chance that the hen was full of sweet smell and tasted very good. After then, this cooking method was transferred to restaurants. It method was improved continuously based on the conventional method by cooks. Select fat and tender Yue Chicken, rap it with bamboo shell and fresh lotus leaves, rap it with wine jug mud in the exterior, and cook it with big flame first and then the small one. Eat it right after it is cooked, fresh sweet smell will be felt and the meat is fresh and soft and tasty. It finally has become a traditional famous dish. |
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| Fried Crab Meat Steamed In£side Orange: The dish is a former famous dish in Nan Song Dynasty cooked with crabmeat and orange juice. After development and research for the dish, it has become a dish appraised by guest at home and abroad. It was awarded gold award in the third national cooking competition and it was listed in "China famous dish". The color of the dish is bright, smell is good and the flavor is unique. It has the tasty of "fresh wine, mum, sweet orange and crab," required in old cooking books of "Shanjiaqinggong" and the shape is vivid and elegant as well. It has a spirit of time in historical feature romance. It was a popular famous dish from royal officials to low-level officials in Nan Song Dynasty. |
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| Special snacks in Hangzhou |
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| Fantastic steamed pork bun: It is a special snack. During cooking, select the fermented fine white flour as the skin of the bun, with fresh pork or pork mixed with dry shrimp or chicken meat mixed with ham as stuffing. Add pork skin jelly in the stuffing and then put it in steam cage after the bun is made and steam it with big flame. It is called fresh pork bun, shrimp meat bun and chic-ken and ham bun respectively. These buns are juicy, sweet and fresh with thin and elast-ic skin but have different flavor. |
South Mizong Big bun: The flour is used as skin of the bun after fermented. Use the fresh fore leg pork and pork skin jelly (sweetened bean paste or sesame or greengrocery) as stuffing and steamed it with big flame in big cage after the bun is made. General, 500g flour can make only 9 big buns. It combined with features of buns of various buns from the south and north. It is called Mizong big bun for it has no classes. Minzong big bun is white and full and soft and elastic. It is the best in snacks for it is cheap and in good quality. |
Slice boil noodle: It is a famous snack in Quiyuan Restaurant of Hangzhou and it is a special snack in Hangzhou as well. During cooking, select lean pork slice, bamboo slice, snow vegetable and cook it with noodle. It is fresh and tasty as pork slice is fresh and the color of snow vegetable and bamboo slice is distinguish. |
Cat's ears: it is the traditional special snack in Zihuiguan of Hangzhou. 900 pieces of flour leaves can be made with 500g fine white flour. It is made with chicken slice, ham slice, mushroom, dry cowrie, bamboo slice as condiments. The shape flour leaf of the snack is looked like cat ear and it is very small. The ham slice is like agate and chicken slice like amber and soup is fresh and tasty as well. |
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| The Best Scholar Restaurant: the ninth year of Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty, Wang Shangrong from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province opened a noodle restaurant. The restaurant is adjacent to the exam room, in order to attract the scholar who is going to attend the examination, he named the restaurant as "the best scholar house". In the third year of Xuantong in Qing Dynasty(1911), Wang Shangrong's grandson Wang Fengchun transferred"the best scholar house"to Ban'er Xiang of the Zhi Street in Wangxian Bridge, because the new restaurant was not a storied building but a one-storied house, he changed the name as "The Best Scholar Restaurant". And in 1938, the restaurant was transferred here. This restaurant is a Ningbang noodle restaurant, and it is famous for its noodles and dishes of fried eel with shrimp, the fish with crab spawn, and Ning-style eel. |
Hangzhou Du Jinsheng Industries Limited: it was located beside the West Lake, Hangzhou Du Jinsheng Industries Limited was founded by the famous national entrepreneurs-Du Jinsheng in 1922, and it was developed from the initial handcraft workshop to the largest domestic production of silk products for export enterprises. Since 1950's, our company has been issued as the key unit of opening up by Hangzhou Government and Zhejiang Government to welcome the presidents of the state and the government from around the world. Our beloved Premier Zhou Enlai, Zhu Rongji and other revolutionaries of the older generation. Li Ruihuan, Hu Jintao, Li Lanqing and other state leaders have inspected the company and guide our work. |
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The specialty market in Hangzhou:
The clothing wholesale market in Evergreen has a high reputation at home. Since the late 1980's the first clothing wholesale market- the Evergreen Clothing Wholesale Market in Hanghai Road was opened. This area became a centre of clothing market. Therefore, a large-scale clothing market was founded in Hanghai Road. The market is becoming larger and larger, and the grades are improving. The mode of the boutique's decoration was used in many markets, particularly in such new market as Hangzhou clothing. These new markets have not only static display platform, but also have dynamic display platform. In here, you can see the performance while you take orders. |
The lake-beside traveling business trade walk block in Hangzhou: The walk business street net is composed by Changsheng Road, Bachelor Road, Pinghai Road, Renhe Road and Posts and Telecommunications Road which are at the west of Yan'an Road and Wushan Road which is at the east of Yan'an Road. These roads also format six special streets: silk street, diet and entertainment street, jewelry and high-quality goods street, watering hole and coffee street, Zhejiang faction clothing street and old culture street. A underground business street will be constructed along Yan'an Road at the consideration of the plan to construct the No.1 subway line along Yan'an Road. |
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| The tea culture village of Mei's shipyard: The local tea and meal in Mei's shipyard at the West Lake area have already become a little famous. On holidays a lot of people will come here to drink tea. At present the plan to build the tea culture village of Mei's shipyard has been designing. It is forecasted to start to build this village in April this year. A new area whose subject is to testing, buying and enjoying tea will be formed, and the tourism will also see the tea skill shows there. |
China Silk Capital: This market war established in 1987. Now it covers 25 thousand square km, includes four new selling halls with palace style and more than stores with national characteristic. About 2000 kinds of goods including pure silk lining, silk clothing, silk handicrafts, silk material and textile can be found to sell in this market. It is the largest silk wholesale market in all province capital cities in China. |
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| The experience of leisure capital in orient |
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Important night scene in Hangzhou:
Night scene in Song Town: The large-scale dance <The Old Affection with Song Town> is the performance that all travelers in Hangzhou want to watch. It is based on the thousand-year history legends and culture of Hangzhou, building a kind of mystery stage ideal condition with modern high tech method. With the fusion of Chinese Kongfu, acrobatics, Chinese national dance and Chinese national clothing, this performance will send every tourist a visional shock and an experience of Chinese character and style. Whiling watching the performance, you can travel the streets in Song dynasty about 1000 years ago in Hangzhou, and test a unique feeling about the marketplace character and style of ancient China. |
Qingteng Teahouse: the oldest teahouse in Hangzhou. Teahouses sparkplug the country drinks and bring honor of culture of tea. Their objective is to offer a cup of good tea for their customs to enjoy. Famous tea, famous pots and famous paintings can all be found in this teahouse. The ideal of testing tea and the methods to make tea are very important here. Quiet and tasteful environment and good oral tradition make this teahouse famous in Hangzhou. It is awarded twice "Top 10 warm teahouse" of Hangzhou in 1999 and 2000. |
Ziyige teahouse: It is located beside Zhejiang Yuquan school area. It is a large teahouse filled with nature breath. It is well decorated inside the teahouse. The green canes make the whole teahouse plain and elegant which give us a new different feeling. There are not only theater boxes for two sizes, but also a meeting hall, which can be used to hold the tea flower shows. Many place characteristic tea drinks are supplied here, so we can experience several different tea testing-styles. |
Jia Youzi footbath |
Purchasing your beloved souvenir: the night market on Wushan Road |
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