Shanghai, July 21

Hangzhou was a whirlwind trip - I think the highways here are a scary - I thought it was bad in Calgary - but the cars are nuts and change lanes so quickly and closely that you're sure the bus you're in will hit it. (Actually there was a horrible bus accident the day before we went) I'm thinking trains will be the way to go. Hangzhou is famous for West Lake - a beautiful lake with gardens surrounding most of it and the city to one end. The best was the amazing Lingyin temple that seemed to go on forever. You enter the temple area through a grotto where Buddhas are carved into the rock face. There are paths and stairs to them along the small river. You finally reach the temple buildings which are numerous and house enormous Buddhas. Mr. Grumpypants and I climbed to the very top temple building to find three Buddhas carved from wood with their clothing and lotus flower seats painted white. These Buddhas must have been over 25 m.

Enough about the sightseeing, the lunch was also amazing. This area is famous for its tea plantations thus a delicious dish of pork in a light gravy made with tea - now I'm thinking the tea was the Pu-Ehr type - a little earthy, kinda like sweet tobacco and very tasty. Also prawns (in the shell) loaded with salt and pepper, sweet and sour pork - on the sour side, yum, snap peas, chicken wings, tomato soup, bok choy, fish with green onions and crab legs with ginger, green onion and glutinous rice sitcks.

We also visited a tea plantation where they grow green tea. In the style of a wine tour we wandered around the grounds, then had a demonstration on the roasting of tea, and how to make a proper cup of green tea. We were served the spring tea - delicious and fresh tasting...it's called Dragon's Well.

Long blog today because of the spectacular meal last night. We were on the 9th floor of an insanely large shopping centre (someone said the largest in the world and I wouldn't doubt it- I think it was called the Super Brand Centre). We ate in the fanciest place I've seen here- called Yuga - over the top - black slate floors, or wood inlaid with stone, sculptured glass walls and many individual sunken private rooms that you step down into or elevated dining rooms hovering above a ground surface of rocks.

The tables were set with a few dishes when we sat down - here's the list:
deep fried anchovies (or some other small fish) into a crunchy slightly sweet morsel, smoked mackeral (or some other fish) presented emerging from a banana leaf wrapping, edamame, lotus (covered in a thick semi sweet goo), pickled cucumber and slices of what I think was a chicken loaf stuffed with italian sausage. So that was the starter.

Next came the rice wraps with duck, green onion and celery (make your own), sweet and sour pork, chicken in a light sauce covered in shaved ice, white fish (like halibut in flavour and texture) covered with green onion strips that had been flash fried to a delicious crispness, beef with garlic chips, enormous prawns (lightly battered and deep fried with a sweet sticky sauce), prawn heads stuffed with a ground meat mixture, ginger pork with strips of pineapple, served inside the carved pineapple, - oh here's an odd one, slow cooked lamb with mashed potatoes and those small white onions, offal soup with peculiar but tasty fungus, croissant like veggie puffs, and a sweetish, starchy soup with little sweet, marshmallow like, balls (are these bubble tea bubbles?). Oops, I forgot the frog stew - loaded with chillies and unbelievably hot. I also missed the Chinese greens with the egg - the egg white was an amber coloured jelly and the yolk was a beautiful green. I hope I haven't missed anything else, I was having a hard time noting things and keeping up with the dishes being presented.

Just a note - Mr. Grumpypants missed the whole thing because he was working, now that is something to be grumpy about!!!