17 January 2008: Snow!

After getting so excited about the sunshine in Shanghai, one should note than I also got very excited about the snow in Jiaxing and Hangzhou.
Chris and I awoke a little later than we had planned, and started the day off with a brisk walk around part of the South Lake. We saw a couple of people practicing Tai-Chi by the water's edge, which was very surprising, given how cold the morning air was. While we were walking, a light dusting of snow began to fall. We started making our way back to the hotel to pack our things and eat some breakfast.
By the time Fion and Elane came to pick us up, the snow was coming down quite heavily, and some parts of the snow were starting to stick to buildings and plants. Elane was very excited about the snow, saying that it doesn't often snow in Jiaxing.
Fion and Elane took us to a mountain near Hangzhou, which was home to a Tibetan Buddhist Temple. The mountain was riddled with stone carvings in every possible nook and cranny. The carvings were very old and surrounded by legend. The legend claims that the entire mountain was flown to it's current location from India! I think it's more likely that the monks living in the temple thousands of years ago carved these out using rudimentary tools. It's hard to tell though, because the line between myth, legend, and truth in Chinese culture seems a little blurred.
The mountain was spectacular! It was like something out of a fairytale, with a light dusting of snow just for added special effect. I could have spent all day wandering in and out of the mountain paths, except that it was quite cold, and we were under a strict time limit.
After making our way through a couple of the winding tracks, Fion pointed out where the temple was. The temple was so big that I couldn't see all of it at once. Fion led us through a courtyard and into the first pavilion, which housed some gold plated statues. I was impressed at their size, being about 10m high (that's just an estimate).
We moved through several pavilions, all with beautiful gold statues, and huge inscents burning pots. Fion and Elane explained that there is a pavilion for each of the main gods, and that smaller (related) gods line the edges of the pavilion.
One pavilion was right at the rear of the compound, and overlooked the mountains and all the other buildings. Inside, was a giant gold Buddah. Again, I marveled at the scale of the statue; it was so big that I struggled to fit it into my camera's view. It almost felt like the pavilion was too small for this idol, and that the roof should be made higher, or that the Buddah was going to get cramped up in this small space.
On the way back to the car, Chris started a snow-ball fight, and managed to throw a big wad of snow down my neck!! It was very cold. Fion and Elane thought it was very funny, and started making snow-balls to throw at each other and at Chris. It was a lot of fun.
Fion and Elane stopped at one of the street vendors to buy some Chinese name charms. They gave me Chinese surnames, Chris' surname was to hard for them so they used his first name. My surname is "Whey" meaning hansom and strong. It's pronounced the same way as "Hello" when you answer the phone in Chinese, but Fion assures me that it's a different word. :)
We went to lunch at the most famous hotel in Hangzhou, It's right on the edge of the West Lake, and is over 100 years old. Following lunch, Fion took us out on a small boat to see the islands in the middle of the lake. It was very cold.  After that we started heading to our Hotel, we took the scenic route around the lake, it was much warmer in the car!  We did stop on the way to have one last quick look around the lake.  We found some goldfish swimming in the lake, and a lady selling popcorn to feed them, I never knew goldfish ate pop-corn, but these ones did.  It was great fun.  We then continued heading to our hotel where we said goodbye to our new friends from Jiaxing Jackson.
Chris and I spent a couple hours getting settled into the hotel, and thawing out. Then we set out to explore Hangzhou by foot. I got us lost, and we managed to stumble upon the train station, then a night-market. The night market was good, and didn't seem like as much of a rip off as the markets in Shanghai. Chris saw a couple things he liked, so we bought them. Then we headed back to the hotel.