China #3 (redux): Hangzhou Day 1

[petronia]

As requested manifold times in that last monster flist meme, I've begun to upload my China photographs to lj-pics. Here is the gallery of my first day in Hangzhou: page 1 and page 2. Do go take a look, I spent all of last evening sorting and selecting and resizing and cropping and running colour/contrast/level filters in Photoshop and uploading and writing captions from my inadequate notes, even worse memory and Internet research. 50 photos down, something like another 150 to go. Perfectionism? What's that?

A selection of the ones I like best are behind the cut. Feel free to use as Juuni Kokki ficcing material (what? ...but I am convinced that each of the Twelve Kingdoms corresponds to a Chinese province, because that's how I would do it. Except Ono-sensei probably intends nothing of the sort, and I can't really tell from the anime), although Hangzhou looks absolutely nothing like Tai. Tai is somewhere on the Western frontier, j0.

Baoshi Hill III View of West Lake, which is what everyone goes to Hangzhou to see. The bridged and tree-lined walkway is Bai Dike.

West Like III The famed "Broken Bridge" of Bai Dike, which - as manifestly obvious - is not in fact broken. It turns out that the name comes from a trompe-l'oeil effect: on the rare occasions that it snows in Hangzhou (the climate being even milder than Shanghai), due to wind or something snow will only accumulate at the two ends of the bridge, creating the illusion from a distance that the arch is broken. Some years ago it actually snowed, and the entire city turned out - with shovels.

Bai Dike II Bai Juyi - my beloved Bai Juyi - wrote: 最爱湖东行不足，绿杨荫里白沙堤。 The "dike of white sand in the shade of green willows" is Bai Dike, which at the time was called Baisha (White Sand) Dike. The name was later shortened in the poet's honour.

Bai Dike IV The sightseeing dragon boats constantly ply the waters of West Lake. Every tour group has to get on one of these, but somehow we missed it. Did the energetic youngster thing and walked all the way around the lake instead.

Osmanthus I Or 桂花，which name is a lot more meaningful to me. When we arrived in Hangzhou we went to Zhejiang Uni to book our hostel room, and passed a flowering osmanthus bush. "Crazy tree, it's early," Ruodi said, but it wasn't at all. All the osmanthus in Hangzhou went into bloom simultaneously that weekend; even riding the crowded sweaty standing-room-only bus on main arteries the sweet maddening fragrance of it wafted through with the breeze. Like Montmartre's lilacs in May, or how I imagine it anyway. The sense-memory linked inextricably with the city. Actually, I don't think I've smelt blooming osmanthus since I was a child in Shanghai. Shanghai was an osmanthus-free zone this time around, though. :/

Fou Pavilion I Fou Pavilion, which is not the same place as Fou Temple at the foot of Ge Hill (...look, it has to be said). Fou Temple is the gravesite of Fou Fei (1103-1142), general and defender of the Southern Song against the Jin barbarian hordes. Fou Pavilion commemorates Wu Changshi, a famous calligrapher and painter of the late Qing.

Su Dike II As sunsets go it wasn't even a particularly impressive one, but quietly poetic as these things are measured. The scenery could be no less than beautiful anyway.

Su Dike IV Su Dike is both quieter and greener than Bai Dike, a rambling romantic English park equivalent rather than a manicured French one. I don't remember which of the two is planted with peach trees - it's hard to tell the difference when they're not flowering - but supposedly it's very beautiful in the spring.

Su Dike VI The couple's pose is just too perfect not to invade their privacy. XD There's a lover's bench under every weeping willow planted on Su Dike, and from what I could tell lovers make good and frequent use of them.

Comments

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Tai isn't somewhere like Mongolia--with, like, barbarians and yurts and stuff, and the kind of populace that other people build ginormous stone walls to keep out. (Er, apologies to any readers from Mongolia.)

Lovely photos, certainly inspiring for nefarious fic purposes. It's kind of you to do the captions, as without them I'd have no clue what I'm looking at beyond "tree w/ yellow flowers."

[reynardine.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, what beautiful scenery! It seems so peaceful, too.

[methexis.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much for these.

Cordially,
J.

[marici.livejournal.com]

There's a reason my old journal was "Osmanthus." In Kyoto that first fall, I'd been smelling Heaven for a day before I found where it came from. Thanks for the pictures even if they remind me its another ten months until it blooms again.
-Mari

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

I WAS WHERE YOU WERE. That makes me unforgiveably smug&happy. Inherent fangirl, what? <3

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, West Lake is a beautiful place. I wish I got to see it in the sunlight. Still... at night, it's perfect.

Chris