Nature with added taste

June 13th, Monday

In the Tai Zi Wan park

"Rustic wooden bridges and thatched cottages may evoke childhood memories," said the notice at the gate to the park at the southwestern corner of West Lake. I had got there after being stuck in the CBD tunnel on a very crowded yellow K96 bus for ten minutes on my way into town, not pleasant, but the Tai Zi Wan park relaxed me. I read that it was named after two Song Dynasty princes Zhuangwen and Jingxian (I didn't quite see how) and that it had been awarded a prize from the PRC in 1995 for being one of the best parks in China. It's interesting to note what the Chinese find praiseworthy; this place was full of what they call (or what their translation calls) "nature with added taste," which to my mind is like their adding dollops of MSG to the mass produced food.

There was another of those prefabricated churches again, this one larger than the one in the Botanical Gardens, and it had a serving hatch to the right of the door offering popcorn and soft drinks. You didn't get that in the churches of my childhood. I see from the blogpost of a British estate agent working in Hangzhou that I'm not the only outsider who found this bizarre: click here for a photo of the church interior! Also, in a muddy field, I saw the big Dutch windmill complete with sails; it turned out to be a café when I got closer.

The church in the Tai Zi Wan park

The landscaping of the Tai Zi Wan walkways, pools, streams and bridges was very attractive, all the same, with Japanese maples, ornamental grasses, irises and shapely rocks. The rain held off that morning. I found a small waterfall and sat in a thatched pavilion up winding steps on the top of a little knoll to eat my sandwiches and watch the fish in the clear pond below while birds with long striped tails flew through the branches. Piped piano music rose etherially through speakers concealed in the grass, Scott Joplin harmonising with the men who were shouting in chorus in the woods, the clang of metal barricades being dismantled after Sunday's influx of crowds, and the hum of the nearby traffic.

Inevitably, a bridal photo party appeared, the photographer with his seven or eight assistants in blue T-shirts carrying a bouquet of lilies and a huge teddy bear, the bridge and groom wearing white. As I watched, the couple was encouraged to lie down on the wet grass with the letters L-O-V-E artfully positioned around them.

There were two more such groups beside the next pond.

Crossing the road, I entered the neighbouring park: Viewing Fish in the Flowery Harbour (hua gang), where indeed there were carp by the hundreds, with hundreds of tourists looking down at them, their cameras at the ready. Round the corner I saw pigeons and white doves vying to be fed, some perching on people's heads, hands and shoulders, to the squeals of the high-heeled girls, more cameras clicking and flashing. At the other side of the lawn were rival peacocks displaying their tails while the peahens paid them no attention, ambling away down the paths, unafraid of people, or flying up to perch in the trees.

Gradually, as I followed a network of paths to the west of Xi Hu, I left the crowds behind me. I failed to find the connecting path to the Su Causeway but did come across the tiny, humped Ming Dynasty Jingxing Bridge hidden behind foliage in a swampy area; some of its stones looked genuinely old.

I asked a security guard outside the park where the nearest bus stop was, understood his answer and decided to wait for the Y2, a tourist bus with a ¥2 fare which I assumed would take me to the northeast corner of the lake. It did, eventually, but by a very circuitous route via the Lingyin Temple bus station in the hills and through several tea villages I hadn't seen before, a guide at the front telling the passengers what we were seeing, except that I hardly understood a word so just sat there.

I got out at the Broken Bridge in Melting Snow stop, no snow imaginable in that heat, with the lotus buds of midsummer just beginning to unfold.

After this excursion I flopped at the hotel, Chris coming back to take a QNX conference call to talk about whether his work in Hangzhou should be extended (but he was also wanted for projects elsewhere in the world). Then we had one of our regular suppers at the Food Republic (dà shí dài) outlets above the ice rink in the MixC mall and walked home by the river in the rain, trying not to get our feet wet.