Day 2 of our Trip to Hangzhou

This was our day to go visit the Xixi (pronounced sheshe) Wetlands.  This required hiring a taxi and was a 30-minute drive through Hangzhou.  This time we were to travel along the Xixi River and again we got to ride on some special boats.  The River winds in a circle with waterways through the middle going North and South and East and West.  It also had an island area where we docked and ate and saw some actual dragon boats practicing for races the next day.  We also stumbled onto some special Chinese Opera.  The wait to get onto our first boat was nearly 45 minutes.  Once again it was a very hot, muggy day.  But we thoroughly enjoyed being out on the boats.

Catching our final boat back to the entrance took longer than Lilian thought and by the time we caught a taxi back to our hotel, we hit some pretty bad traffic.  We were starting to get nervous about catching our 4pm train back to Shanghai.  The taxi driver stopped at our hotel long enough for us to pick up our trolley and Rod's guitar at the desk.  Then we hastily headed to the train station.  Although the return tickets were purchased, we did not yet have the tickets in hand.  Lilian tried to book a later train as we were cutting it really close on time, but there were no more seats on any trains from that station leaving that evening!  The taxi driver dropped us off and Lilian dashed off with our passports to collect Rod's and my tickets and Jenny took us to the security checkpoints.  The police would NOT let us go through without our tickets and passports in hand.  Lilian came running and the 4 of us dashed into security, begging to crowd ahead of others to catch our train.  We grabbed our things off the inspection belt and RAN for the train gate.  Rod thinks we ran for nearly 5 full minutes, even down stairs, and then made it to the train about 3 minutes before it departed!!! Whew!  We were so thankful to make that train and head "home" to Shanghai. Lilian booked a taxi to meet us at the Shanghai train station to drive us back to our hotel near the college campus.  What an exciting end to our Trip to Hangzhou!!!

 

I forgot to mention that another friend of Lilian's, Breanna, joined us for the day at Xixi Wetlands.  Breanna is a native of Hangzhou and was a great guide for us. Jenny and Lilian are in the front 2 seats and Breanna is sitting behind them.