Hangzhou was nothing short of beautiful and the only regret I had was not staying longer. Being part of a longer trip, I imagined that people would normally do multi-city visits (Nanjing, Suzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou…) so I planned a similar route, only to realise what I had missed out by only allocating 3 days to the place. Here’s what we did and what you can do differently! While this is a 4 part blog series, I decided to start the series with my favourite of the 4 locations we went to.

Hangzhou is accessible by flight directly from Singapore, or you can take a flight into Shanghai or Nanjing and then take the HSR.

What we did

We mostly spent our time in West Lake (Xihu 西湖). That was 2 out of 3 days! Having done that we didn’t even complete walking through the entire round of West Lake, probably only hitting 4-5 out of the 9 stops people normally stop at. You can do a quick search on XHS / Rednote for tips on how people walk through Xihu and find some of the photo spots to look out for.

Here’s a rough plan you can work with if you intend to spend your time exploring Xihu! You can enter the Lake walking area from ANYWHERE on the lake - the only thing to note is: there are limited drop off points because some parts of the zone are only open to public transport and not private hire vehicles. YOU WILL NEED TO TAKE A BUS to enter the lake area!

We recommend choosing ANY stop on the zone, if you are lost, start with the Visitor Center, Hangzhou Zoo, Nine Creeks, Broken Bridge or Su Causeway. Get the car to drop you at the points of entry/nearby, then WALK IN. If you take the car in, either you will have trouble will the drop off, or the driver may drive to a different location to drop you and you would have to walk back even further, which defeats the purpose of a taxi anyway.

The beauty of Xihu is really mesmerising and you should take the time to walk, do not rush. There are food and drinks around the entire place, my friend even ordered bubble tea from one zone, went over to pick it up and continued walking.

Ticketing Issues:

you do not need to book tickets to enter West Lake BUT
you need tickets to West Lake impressions - get on Ctip/Trip.com, from what I last checked it’s more expensive on klook

Day 1:

West Lake (9am-12pm) - walk around, stop for snacks
Have lunch then continue walking the round
Have an early dinner/something to eat
Head to West Lake Impressions show (7-8pm)
Have dinner after in the place before leaving West Lake area as it takes a while to get out of the place.

Day 2:

Nine Creeks in Misty Forest (2-3 hours)

Longjing Tea Village (2 hours)
Have lunch and drink tea
Go home and rest, there’s been a lot of walking!

Day 3

Song Cheng Museum/Play zone OR
Hangzhou Zoo

Day 1: West Lake looks like a postcard, the entire park looks like a postcard!

The biggest surprise and memorable moment was the sudden push (collectively, everyone moved) to the river edges for the sunset. It was an experience where you don’t just watch the sunset you watch hundreds of people watch it together. In winter the sun sets around 4:50-5pm. You could also go for a sunset boat ride if you fancy!

Day 1 (evening): Hangzhou West Lake Impressions

Day 2 was a bit more chill as we were quite tired from walking through nearly half of Xihu the day before, so we only hiked through Nine Creeks and continued up the trail to Longjing Tea Village. It’s quite a leisurely walk and it was even better because the cool weather made everything feel fresher. We stopped at the most amazing place for lunch (see below), and after lunch we headed back to the hotel.

Where we stayed

杭州 W PLUS 管家 

This has truly been one of the best hotels I’ve ever stayed in, in my life.

Location: It’s right on the edge of West Lake 西湖, around 10-15 minutes by car/bus into West Lake. Staying near west lake is super important because it’s so big so getting just to the entrance takes a bit of time.  

Some notes: the hotel is on the top of a small slope, however the top part of the slope is rather steep, if you are travelling with people who aren’t that physically able, always get the car to drop you at the top of the hill. If taxi drivers say they cannot go up, insist. When we went there the first day with luggage and all, the taxi driver refused to go up the slope so we ended up dragging 30 inch suitcases up the hill.  

view of the tea plantation from the balcony

Our experience at the hotel:

It was relatively new, very clean and all facilities are in great condition
The staff was always on hand and taking initiative to serve the guests. Every time we went to the front desk area to wait for a car or ask for help we would be greeted with tea and fruits, even for just a short wait! They helped us ship luggage and parcels to our next hotel in another city and personally took us in their car to a destination when no taxi driver would take our request during a peak hour jam. When we asked for help to figure out a problem they would ensure we were always attended to very quickly. One of the smallest but most lovely gestures that touched me was when we had quite a few stray wires around - chargers, vacuum packing pumps etc, the staff during cleaning actually got Velcro strips and tied all the wires neatly together, this really goes beyond clearing / cleaning your room.  
Food: It is a small menu because of the number of guests, but very cosy and the food is great. Try their beef noodles (thin noodles not the thick one), highly recommended! The watermelon juice is very fresh too.  The wonderful thing about this hotel is that there’s breakfast, midday snack, and a night snack or small ‘bbq’, and all minibar items are complimentary, we’re talking 8-10 drinks. On top of that, fruits are in huge supply. My only regret is not having a large enough stomach to eat everything I saw.

What we ate

Two main locations that will definitely wow your taste buds

Green Tea Restaurant
I’m sure this has been shared many times, but this place is truly worth the hype. We went to the branch nearest to Siyanjing area and we were blown away by the quality of the food. We ordered shrimp with vermicelli noodles, some vegetables and dongpou pork.

龙鼎楼•传承本帮菜
Long Ding Lou Restaurant
[You can reserve on Wechat but I rather you just walk in, we didn’t have to wait at all during lunch hours]

We found this on Meituan while walking into Longjing Tea Village and by this time we were ravenous so you can imagine we didn’t have high expectations just to fill our stomach. But boy oh boy I dare say this was the best meal of our trip overall, yes sorry Green Tea Restaurant. We ate the stewed radish, chicken, eggs and shrimp, and pork ribs with fried longjing leaves! Of course the lunch came with a couple glasses of longjing tea. It was unbelievably good my friend wanted to lick the pot.