I think a lot about my time in Kyoto last year with Govey, it had a lasting effect on me, it's a place that reaches down inside. I didn't have the ridiculous notion of wanting to move there like some backpackers do when they end up in south east Asia so they are away from their lives etc. Maybe it was the smell of the incense you bathe in at the temples and all the places of natural beauty that their shrines are built around. I tell everyone to visit there whenever they mention Japan.
Susu was hoping to show me something similar in China because of my endless rattles about how great Kyoto was. Wuzhen at night was beautiful, but it also suffers from the fact its not too easy to get to (some would cry out and say that's perfect for an adventure, I wouldn't) and also it suffers very badly from the 'other side of the tracks' syndrome.
Hangzhou on the other hand, for me even in a terrible mood (a combination of not being able to get cash, a runny bum and feeling generally ill) was a beautiful place, its a place where I knew I had written a poem in my past not realising it was about a place I had yet to visit. Racking my brains I couldn't remember which piece of verse I was thinking about but that wasn't the point. The West Lake is a quiet beauty, even if there are a thousand tourists all huddled around, the Chinese is whispered. The mist moves across the lake past the mountains, bringing things in and out of focus. I saw the lotus leaves although sadly not in bloom, ache gently on the skin of the water as if they were long legged birds walking.
Dotted around the lake are several notable buildings, one I entered had a beautiful garden, this was the hidden China I thought had disappeared down the spout and up a chimney of progress and the future. The stone statues of the garden over grown with the thick kind of moss that can't be removed even with the strongest solvents. My dad told me that each of the places had special names and meant something, this was lost on me at the time.
The Tiger Spring was the last place we visited before Returning for Beijing. I expected it to be one of the few things that are free in the world, but it cost 15 yuan, the main gate opens to a path leading on a gentle slope to the left of a small pond fed by a small brook. The brook runs parallel to the path filling up different ponds with different plants and even trees. Past a statue of a pair of tigers the path gets steeper up some steps and then the spring, An emperor came to the spring tastes the water and said that it was the third best spring in the world. I haven't been to many springs in my life and neither am I an emperor, but it did taste sweet and clean. Past this was a monastery and something out of all the epic Wushu films I have seen in my life this was something that unrolled in front of me.
Is Hangzhou my favourite place on earth, I can be honest and say no, but it is in my top five of places I have seen.
Please enjoy the weeping willows my beautiful eggs.
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