Side Trip to Wuzhen

Wed., May 12, 2010--Hangzhou (Continued)   Wes napped while I updated the blog in the late afternoon. Then we returned to the lakeside. We wandered for about 1 1/2 hours watching people and enjoying the view. Then we watched a musical fountains show at 20:00. I was standing behind a young boy who looked Indian. I asked if he was from India, and he was. He said he is from Madurai in Tamil Nadu, and I told him I had been there. He's in the 8th Standard in school and math is his favorite subject. He was a nice kid, and his parents seemed happy that I was visiting with him. His mother asked what I thought of Obama and responded positively when I said that I liked him. So many people from other countries look more positively on America because of the election of Obama.   We ate street food for dinner. We got pancakes that were filled with vegetables and seasoned with chile sauce and another dark brown sauce. They were a bit plain, but they were fine.     Thurs., May 13, 2010--Hangzhou and Wuzhen   We almost missed breakfast this morning. We got there at 8:30, and at 9:00 they were closing down the buffet. We'll have to be earlier in the future.   We decided to go to Wuzhen, an old canal town outside of Hangzhou today. It became more of an effort and more expensive than we had expected. First, the bus to go there leaves from the East Bus Station which is FAR from downtown. We had to try to find a bus to there. The first young man who tried to help us obviously wasn't sure where it was. A young couple came up, and they were headed to Wuzhen also. So they figured out what bus to take and we were off. Unfortunately, however, that bus route had been changed and the driver told them that we would have to change to another bus at a point in the route. We did that. But by the time we got to the East Bus Station, we had been traveling 2 hours!! Then we had a 55 minute wait for the bus to Wuzhen. The bus to Wuzhen took 2 hours and 15 minutes to get there. We didn't arrive in the old town until about 5 hours after we had left!   The Old Town was much smaller than I had hoped. The admission charge was $14 each, so we felt it was a bit overpriced for what there was to see and do. One of the most special things to do there is to see a puppet show, and it wasn't being performed due to the show being moved to the World Expo in Shanghai for the next 6 months. We did see several exhibits and museums. Among the more interesting were a winery using very old techniques and equipment and a bed museum featuring various large framed beds. We were lucky enough to get back from Wuzhen in about 2 1/2 hours. We were tired and it was raining. Therefore, we just bought some instant noodles and prepared them in our room for dinner.