[游记]Follow the road of Marco Polo

Hangzhou is the most beautiful and elegant city in the world.------Marco Polo.Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, is one of the seven ancient capitals and the key scenic tourism and historical culture cities in China. The city once was applauded as "the most splendid and luxurious city in the world" by Marco Polo, the Italian traveler in the 13th century.

On the 1st date of 2008, we began our trip to Hangzhou. It took more than 2 hours to reach there by bus. The first place we visited has a special name getting from a certain poem, is called as Three Pools Mirroring the Moon. The beauty of the scenic spot is the moon in the sky, in the water and in the heart of onlookers. The three stone miniature pagodas standing in the lake off the isle are presumably the best place for moon viewing. These pagodas produce many magic views of the moon in the water, making people nostalgic and reminiscent of the woebegone days and happy moments in the past. On the night of the Autumn Moon Festival, the isle and its three miniature pagodas are the best attraction for moon spectators.

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, lanterns are put inside the windows. Their lights shine and water near the pagoda reflects the shiny lights and the moon. Waters move as moon lovers come rowing boats, producing a wavering scene of the moon and the pagodas and the waters. What could be more enjoyable than this moment and scenery? Moon visitors like us in our boat could feel that we are in paradise or dream.

The terminal stop of our trip is Sung Dynasty Town. In the Southern Sung period, Hangzhou rich with a thriving silk trade, was a center of art, literature, and scholarship and a cosmopolitan city with a large colony of foreign merchants, Arabs, Persians, and Nestorian Christians. Hangzhou is also one of Chinas Sung Dynasty cultural theme park, the first batch of "national demonstration base for the cultural industry," feature a wide range of vivid folk activities to reproduce the flourishing vision of city in Song Dynasty city. Despite the unique large-scale song and dance be held merely at night, we can watch diversified performances in the daytime. Some of them are only be seen in the movies and TV. I am so happy to find several horses again since riding long time before. We stayed there as if we come into the Sung Dynasty from modern time because of all sellers or staff there wore in ancient clothes. Linda and Debbie rented 2 sets of such coat for taking pics. Then, we climbed the tower, stroke the lucky bell, visited exhibition rooms of four ancient inventions of China and took more photos than Suzhou all along. All these pics r not only had been recorded in the camera but also in our memory.

Although I’m quite familiar with this city, actually, I still find pleasant plenty of surprises in each arrival, their feeling is same as mine. I guess that’s the reason why Hangzhou attracts more than 20 million domestic and foreign tourists every year.

(Hangzhou)