Hangzhou April 2013 - (Forgot to Post this)

I left San Diego on Monday morning after Amit kindly gave me a lift to the airport. The plane left an hour late so I missed my connecting flight in Beijing. Fortunately Beijing airport is incredibly well organised with helpful staff  and bilingual signs everywhere. So I was able to get a later flight and arrived at the motel in Hangzhou at 3am.
Honor was already in the room but was quite ill with Hangzhou belly. Somehow I got up at 6am and went on a wonderful run around the fabled West Lake. It was a cool overcast day and the total distance must have been about 15 km. It was a very interesting run where I discovered that Chinese are friendly, they love exercise, they are not self conscious.

This was the beginning of five wonderful days with Honor where we explored Hangzhou upside down.
The second great run I went on was up to the top of the ridge behind the motel. I arrived at 6.30am and was invited to join a stretching group of locals at the pagoda on top of the ridge. So for half an hour we gently stretched and I laughed at the many comments that were directed my way. They were in Mandarin so I just laughed along.
Then I ran down the ridge and back up again. Then I followed the ridge along to the Pagoda on the north end. The views from the ridge were magnificent looking across the West lake. There was a surprise around every corner from the ancient monastery, to the exposed cliff faces with ancient carved pathways, to the songbird groups who carry their songbirds in cages to the top of the ridge each morning and hang them in cages to sing.
My third run was on the last day and it was a big one. I ran from the motel up the Linyin ridge all the way to the Linyin temple on the summit. In the lower reaches there was quite a few people about but as I climbed became alone. As I moved along the top of the ridge the bell of the temple sounded. It was eerie and inspiring. For how many centuries had the faithful been called to prayer by that off tone bell.
On the summit the temple was crowded with people which surprised me, then I saw the reason, a cable car! I was soon on the long track to the bottom and feeling pretty good. At the bottom I passed through the manicured gardens of the Temple which was full of tourists. So I came to a T intersection, mmmmm... left or right? With my infallible sense of direction I chose left which took me into a tunnel! This was a two kilometre two lane traffic tunnel which went back under the mountain range I had come over. Fortunately there was an good foot path on each side of the tunnel and the ventilation was excellent. I enjoyed the tunnel and absolutely sprinted through there laughing and hollering.
Fortunately I understood where I was and knew that if I turned right after exiting the tunnel that I would go back to the Uni. I was getting tired and I had one good tumble on some rough road but the damage was slight.
After two hours I arrived back at the motel and then Honor and I went to explore the gigantic Hangzhou silk market.