Day 369 - Seeing Hangzhou in the rain

After having a huge western-style buffet breakfast first thing this morning (hopefully that'll do us on the 'western food' front for a while) and packing up, we moved down the road to the hostel we stayed at last year. The Mingtown was fine, but the rooms were really small, and the West Lake Youth Hostel has newer, bigger rooms for slightly cheaper! The staff at this hostel is so great, the receptionist even remembered us from last year!!

Braving the rain we walked the couple of kms down the road, and then set out on the tourist bus that took us on a cruise around the lake, and eventually to the train station - a bit sad really because on Thursday mumbles and pops head to Shanghai for their flight to NZ, and we go back to Jinan to pick up the rest of our gear before heading north. Liv will definitely not be in the best of spirits come Thursday morning ...
After our successful trip to the train station we made our way towards the National Silk Museum through one of the many lush greeb parks that are dotted around the shoreline. We visited the silk museum in Suzhou last year after the Lonely Planet told us it was a sight not-to-be-missed, but we left disappointed. The Hangzhou museum we visited today was much more interesting - we all got a detailed lesson in the making of silk right from seeing silk worms munch their way through mulberry leaves, through to watching women weaving material on great looms! It seems to us that the Hangzhou Silk Museum is that one that's not to be missed!

Back at our hostel we had an afternoon snack and the boys enjoyed a few beers - same story, different day (or as they say in Asia: same same, but different)!!

Out at the night markets we all enjoyed wandering around looking at the different stalls, and Adam finally managed to buy Liv a gorgeous pearl necklace, something to last forever just like our Adlibing memories.

Still adlibing it in the rain.