baoshu pagoda

Matt is visiting. On Saturday, he, Aaron and I went for a little hike. We climbed the hill on the north side of the lake and visited a pagoda there.





you may recognize this pagoda from the one yuan bill (upper right corner)


We’re not sure what the history of the pagoda is. There appear to be much more detail in the Chinese version.

Anyhow, the current structure is recent. The windows are fake: you can’t actually climb the pagoda. This made me sad.

We came across the Baoshu Mountain statues. All but two of them were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. This also made me sad.




It was a thick hot day. (Hangzhou seems to have skipped Spring and gone straight into summer.)


The sky broke and it started pouring rain. This was nice and cathartic after the pagoda and statue related sadness.

We went shoe shopping. Matt and I were on the hunt for sandals. He found some pleather ones and some that I vetoed for being too “geriatric” (especially with his white socks on). I had the choices of platform and pink with platforms. We didn’t have much luck.

One thing I did learn, shoe shopping, is that I can't leave Aaron alone. With his exotic looks and smattering of chinese, the ladies flock to him the moment I turn my back. It happens when I come back from the bathroom at bars. It happened when I was looking at sandals. All the sudden, Aaron is surrounded by giggling women and appears to be incredibly uncomfortable.

In the middle of the shopping area of downtown Hangzhou was this: