Woke up at 4.00 a.m., packed and ready to go to Luijiashan. This morning daren't go for my morning walk due to we are to take the first ferry to Lujiashan. There are only 2 ferry trips daily to there. One is the 8.15 a.m. and another is 9.30 a.m.
Left the luggages with the receptionists. We bought chinese dough fritters and soy bean drink for our breakfast.
The ferry ticket and entrance fee to the island cost about $60.00 rem, entrance fee to the temple is extra. Been told that we only have one and half hours to visit the four temples here. Similar with the other 2 days, it was too crowded and all the way uphills to the top, which about 200 to 300 m above sea level and downhill to each individual temples and then rush to take the ferry back to Putuoshan.
Luojiashan is an island and is accessible by ferry only. Beautiful scenery unfortunate, we don't have any time to appreciate the scenery due to we must rush back for the return ferry.
In fact, this trip is not so happy due to all the mad rush and the locals don't want to queue and just cut queue by taking your place even you are standing in a row.
During the prayer, my elder sister was queuing at the spring well for the prayer water, a man just rushed up in front of her and put both his hands above hers. My sister was quite angry and told the man off: "Can't you see I am in the queue and there behind is a row of people patiently waiting in the line." After that, the man's wife was so embarassed by the incident. The couple were quarrelling at the temple in front of the crowds.
Reached back to the harbour of Putuoshan, Lian Heng and Robert headed back to the hotel to arrange the delivery of our luggages to here for us. The ticket back to Shenjiamen cost $25.00 rem and once we reached here and have our lunch and took a taxi back to the coach station. Booked our coach ticket to Hang Zhou and it cost $86.00rem for a one way ticket and took about four hours to reach there.
This was a posh coach with a television screen in front of every seat. You can watch movies, listen to songs or play games. We arrived at Hang Zhou coach station and queue for taxi to take us to the West Lake. Half an hour queue for the taxi and the fare for the taxi was cheap only cost us $38.00 to reach the hotel there. Booked 3 hotel rooms for and each room cost $480 rem with 2 free breakfast.
Left our luggages at the room and went strolling on the West Lake for half and hour. Enjoy a cup of coffee and went to the food court for our dinner. At the food court, you have to purchase the vouchers first and then you go and get your food with these vouchers. Unused vouchers can be exchange back to money.
Took our dinner then went shopping at the shopping Malls. The West Lake Shopping Centres are almost similar as Cannes,France where all branded designers shops and high street shops are around here. "Oh! Oh! the prices for the branded goods are 50 to 100 times more expensive than in United Kingdom.'
It had been raining quite heavily, my sister bought an umbrella, my nephew bought some T-shirts and shorts and my friend, Lay Choo, bought some trainers shorts for her children. Finished our shopping at 10.00 p.m. It was still raining so we went back to the hotel to watch our chinese drama shows.
My friend was surprised why I graded the Putoushan only 1 star. After explained to her that this holy place have become money trading centre. The island had been listed as public company, for last year the profit of this island and some of the holy places where the buddhism believers go and worship their god had gone up 1.8%. They also forecast that the fore coming year the profit will be even higher. I know these island depend on tourism for their income but not to the extend as listed public company earning profit. Especially for fellow buddhism believers, we expect that the teachings of buddhism to be pass from generations to next generations but unfortunately it seem this concept have been overlook with profit which the tourists could bring to the island.
Scored for Luijiashan : 1 star - unfortunately it is too rush and we simply don't have time to appreciate this island and take a single photo of this place.
Scored for Hang Zhou: 5 stars for this place
Places of Interest: Luijiashan and Hang Zhou
Photos: by Robert Suen and Catherine Tan
Dated: 12th May 2012
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