Trip to Hangzhou [photos]

Photos I took in 杭州 Hangzhou (for those of you unfamiliar with Chinese pronunciation, it's like "hong joe"), a city in 浙江 Zhejiang (umm... "juh jong") province.

The big attraction in 杭州 Hangzhou is 西湖 [xī hú] West Lake. It's really beautiful:

"请勿躺卧 Do Not Lie Down"
Plus a little symbol of a guy in a sexy "draw me like one of your French girls" pose

You can buy snacks and little toys and stuff here.

West Lake is a World Heritage site

Starbucks

Haagen-Dazs

This area is apparently called "Three Pools Mirroring the Moon"

So. I promise this is not a swastika. It is a Chinese character called 卍 (wàn) and here is a whole page about how this character comes from ancient Buddhism in India. That web page is in Chinese, here's one in English but with less information. Google Translate and any website where I've looked for an English definition say "swastika" but that's not what it means when you see it on some traditional Buddhist cultural site in China.
Anyway the point here is that the pavilion is shaped like a 卍 (wàn) and it means "all is at peace."

These next pictures are from a street full of little shops and stuff:

Cheap street food.

Snails.

Some sort of flat bread-ish thing, which is made by these guys pounding at it with mallets.

杭州 Hangzhou is nice~ I hope I can go again and see more of it sometime. ^_^