The Weekend
Saturday, Bill organized an outing about Hangzhou. We went to the historic district, the Chinese Traditional Medical Museum, a Buddhist Pagoda, and walked along more of West Lake shoreline.
Sunday was to be a day of rest. The students were on their own to explore, sleep in, shop, etc. I suggested, for those who wanted to, that we take a morning walk through the bamboo gardens not far from campus. As we gathered that AM, plans changed. Instead five of us decided to take the mountain walk that started near our dorm.
First you have to understand the topography of Hangzhou (see Google Earth). Zhejiang – Yuquan campus sets at the foot of a very pronounced hill (best estimate I found on Wikipedia is 0.8 km or around 2,600 ft). The path started behind the library with over 700 continuous steps! I wasn’t counting; every one-hundredth step was marked! At the top there was a trail along the ridge of the mountain that we knew lead to a temple at North Peak. What we didn’t know was how far. So we continued down the trail, ascending and descending for well over two hours. It was hot, we had no map, we had taken little water with us, and those we met on the trail could not converse with us to let us know what was ahead (or how far). Finally, at one point we could see our destination – a Buddhist temple and to our delight a cable car to the foot of the mountain!
The temple itself was inspiring. There were many “pilgrims” at the temple and I don’t think most of them came to that point by the trail we did, there was a main bus stop at the base of the cable car station. Despite our exhaustion and uncertainty of our judgment, we were all very pleased with ourselves for enduring the journey and the experience of the temple. - Kathy