Bought a train ticket on Saturday when I got to the Hangzhou train station. However, only standing tickets were available because there is only one train a day from Hanzhou towards Shenzhen.

The train will depart from HangZhou south station which is a little far away from the city. Took a public bus towards Hangzhou south station at 12pm.

Lunch, rice with dishes 10Yuan~USD$1.5

Since I still have time to spare, fixed my broken shoe.(14Yuan~USD$2). This lady has been fixing shoes since 30 years ago or this was what she told me.

Almost time to get on the train. A big crowd getting on the train and there was no point to queue anyway.

Got on the T211 2.20pm (218 Yuan~USD$32). It’s around 1700km to Shenzhen and will take approximately around 17 hours to get there.

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The train was already full even before the huge crowd managed to get on the train.

There was no room even for me to stand

Night falls, still packed like sardines and stood at the same spot for the past 7 hours.

I have some movies on my laptop and got some of the train passengers interested in it.

Don’t even think about getting an empty spot at the door.

Hangzhou is the capital of ZheJiang province and is one of the richer cities in China. The city has a population of around 8 million people and was the capital during the Southern Song dynasty before the Mongols sacked the city. Even Marco Polo has been here. Housing price here is comparable to Shanghai and the city is famous for its tourist and technology industry.

Luxury car showroom

Lunch with some old university friends, ShouFang and Kai.

XiHu, West Lake. The lake was orginally located at the western part of the city. However, like many other cities in China, there is a big push towards urbanization and the city grew and surrounds the lake today. So by just looking at the map, you might wonder why is it called the west lake.

Hangzhou is voted as one of the best place to live in China. There are bicycles rack all over the city. One can just swipe a transportation card and rent to bicycle for free then drop it at another rack. However, the card will require a deposit of 200 Yuan and can be used for buses too.

Met up with WenHuan, a friend I met at the hostel in Xiamen. He is from Hangzhou as well and was eager to show me around.
A square, I forgot the name.

HeFang Jie which sells goods cater to tourist.

A famous Chinese medicine shop

A unique architecture

A newer part of HangZhou

DongBo meat and some other Hangzhou local delicacies.

Paid a visit to ZheJiang University at night.

Pool with Kai and friends.

Found out that I have some old college friends in HangZhou and decided to visit them. Today is my last day in Shanghai, went to LuJiaZhui to get a last view of Pudong before heading south to Hangzhou.

The bund during day time

A wedding shoot at LuJiaZhui area

LuJiaZhui area in PuDong.

Took bus 144 towards Shanghai south train station

The train station has a unique design, it is designed in a circular pattern and all the entrances to the train are concentrated in the middle part of the station.

and bought the D5683 8.06pm train (54Yuan~USD$8) towards Hangzhou. It’s around 200km from Shanghai to Hangzhou but the train will get us there in just one an a half hour.

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Again, even though the infrastructures and hard assets in China are amazing but peoples’ behavior still need time to change.

Took a bus to ZhuJi train station

Got on the 8.16am train towards Shanghai. There are also high speed train towards Shanghai but the slower train is cheaper and doesn’t take too long.

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There are a lot of constructions going on on the way to Shanghai. Zhejiang is one of the richest province and is developing very well.

Even though there are trains averaging 200km/hour towards Shanghai, the governent is currently building a 350km/hour railway track and possibly might add another 450km/hour Malev train track. The later option is still under discussion because of some protests.

Shanghai is around 250km away and got to Shanghai at around 11.30am after a 3 hours train ride.

Back to Shanghai

Visited the Shanghai museum in the afternoon because I didn’t have enough time the last time I visited.

There are many people in the museum, especially tourists. The museum has quite a lot of artifacts.
Old Chinese furnitures.

Dropped by Fudan University.

Dinner at WuYin’s place with some of her friends at ZhongTan Lu. Around ZhongTan lu, there are maybe a hundred residential apartment buildings around 30 storeys high.

QianYu’s apartment.

Got on the 9.45am bus to ZhuJi,

a town around an hour away from HangZhou. Arrived ZhuJi bus station at 12.20pm after 1.5 hours bus ride.

ZhuJi is just located an hour south of Hangzhou and is considered a mid size city. I decided to drop by here to visit a friend’s tea shop since it’s not far away from Shanghai.

My 9 months journey is coming to an end and most places I stop by is just to visit old friends and friends I met on the road. So from now, my post is not so much about backpacking and it’s more about catching up with aquaintances and I won’t be exploring the cities like I did in my journey.

Took the 10.10am bus to Ningbo which is around 70km and 1.5 hours away.

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Even though Ningbo is not a provincial capital but it’s still a relatively big city of 6 million. Ningbo is one of the 5 treaty ports forced to open up to foreign trade after the opium war in the 19th century.

FengHuangCheng with my 3 local Chinese friends.

FengHuangCheng is roller coaster theme park in China. However, the weather doesn’t look good so we didn’t go in.

Cixi and Ningbo is famous for seafood.

Seafood dinner back in Cixi

I met some friends at the hostel in Xiamen and they invited me to visit their hometown in Cixi.

Today is a rainy day. Went to the Shanghai Southern long distance bus station

and took the 11.20am bus (85Yuan~USD$13)

towards CiXi, a town under the jurisdiction of Ningbo with a population of 1 million.

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Crossing the HangZhou bay on the 36km bridge, which is the world longest bridge over sea. The bridge is funded by businesses in CiXi, this will cut travel time from Shanghai to Cixi from 4 hours to just 2 hours 15 minutes. Cixi is famous for its family enterprises and people here are relatively wealthy. Few cities in China with a rich stereotype are Wenzhou, Ningbo and Fuzhou.

Crossing the Hangzhou Bay