4~ West Lake (西湖)

The day's schedule started with class at 9:30-11:30 followed by a tour of West Lake and 河坊街 (He Fang Ancient Street) which sounded promising. Charlotte and I went down for breakfast early in the morning where we met Bella and Hazel for the first time. They were struggling to order noodles bless them because the lady could only speak Chinese so I ordered for them and I guess it all went from there! Who knew these two girlies would be my closest friends on the whole trip from them on!? 

After class and lunch we all met in the early afternoon to take the coach to West Lake (西湖). I had no idea how famous and ideological it was in China, with many traditional stories surrounding the origins of the lake and its bridges - in particular the broken bridge which is really famous for the Legend of the White Snake story (link is there if you fancy reading about it). 

The scenery was beautiful, it was my first time really seeing Hangzhou in the daylight and the short coach ride rook us through fantastic bamboo gardens and eventually ended up at the West Lake which was just stunning, words can't even describe the beauty. 

A boat had been arranged to take us around the lake and so we all piled on, Bella Hazel Charlotte and I started on the outdoor bit of the boat so we could see the view, it was pretty incredible. Me being me I of course got burnt as I had forgotten sun cream and didn't expect it to be so hot! It was baking especially being in the middle of all that water but it was totally worth it, near the end we just sat down and hung our legs over the edge near the water and chilled out watching the mountains and hills go by. 

I've got to say, we were quite popular there! As a huge group of 85 western students in China we constantly had photo's and comments coming our way, especially when our boat had come back to land and we were getting off we just had a crowd of Chinese people taking our photo which was kinda funny and a few of us posed for a laugh (I took pictures back of them mwaha).

Feeling famous!  

We were supposed to all be in one big group throughout the tour with one tour guide at the front and one at the back to herd us along the lake and its beautiful scenery, but you know what its like to take that perfect picture.. Somehow a group of us camera people got separated from the rest and as much as we thought we were walking in the right direction we were totally wrong. Not only were we lost on our second day but our Chinese phone numbers still weren't working properly (you have to give it at least 24 hours to configure) which means we had no way to contact anyone else - nightmare! 

After some very awkward Chinese from my part that didn't get us anywhere, we used Hazels English phone to make the call to the school for help, which costed a ridiculous amount of money but kind of saved our lives there haha! While we waited for help to come and find us we had a little chill out which I actually appreciated much more as I don't like being in a huge group like cattle. The sun was starting to set a little so the atmosphere was really serene and relaxed and I appreciated just chilling there for 20 minutes while waiting for the tour guide to take us to the next destination - He Fang Street!