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This morning our bus took us first to a Buddhist temple and gardens, before a tea house and then lunch. The Buddhist temple was ok, but I am a little over them by now. Lots of Chinese milling around with handfulls of newly purchased joss sticks which they burn to show respect to Buddha. Most aren't Buddhists, they are just having a shilling each way! Quite funny really. It is one indicator of just how superstitious they are! We then drove through some lovely countryside with lots of terraced tea plantations to a tea house come tea history museum come tourist trap! We got a really good spiel delivered very professionally about the growing and processing of tea. We got to try some tea with the addition of some efficacious ingredients such as dried hawthorn berries and dried orange (mandarin) peel! It was actually quite an interesting experience and many people bought tea and other stuff. I bought some tea lollies which are actually delicious, and a lovely china bottle of bamboo wine, which is also very tasty! I just hope it makes it home without breaking! Dad bought some tea which is supposed to be the best there is. Hangzhou is famous throughout China for its tea. After that we went to lunch before going for a cruise on the Western Lake which was a really beautiful lake and had wonderful views of the city, pagodas etc and the weather was just gorgeous. After that we went to see a famous pagoda but dad and I and Barry and Sue stayed back and found a beer or two instead. :) After that we battled our way through unbelievable traffic to finally arrive at our hotel around 6:15pm. We had dinner and then went up to our rooms and I did some photo uploading and went to bed.
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