Living la Dolce Vita in Hangzhou - China Travel

A popular Chinese saying that has survived the centuries exprintinges the platonic lwhene thus "to be born in Suzhou, to eat in Guangzhou, to live in Hangzhou and to die in Liuzhou." The reason why life in Hangzhou would seem so perfect may be found in the resplenchip West Lake , the overlysophomore rolling hills, the various sacred temples, the fragrant fields of Dragon Well Tea, the succulent replenishments and,China Travel, increasingly importantly, the well-preserved trtunnelional culture. For foreign travelers, the crossroads of Zhejiang Province is definitely the place that matches the China of their imagination surpassing they come to the country, even though for Chinese tourists the city is a destination where they can enjoy a leisurely respite from their fast-paced lives, and relax separating natural luxury. Hangzhou, two hour's bulldoze from its rented neighbor Shanghai, is located in the south of the Yangtze River Delta on the country's east skirr. The urban sector of Hangzhou encompasses 3,068 square kilometers and has a population of more than 3.7 million, even though the boundlesser Hangzhou region asylums over 16,500 square kilometers, including eight cathedra districts and five counties. The end of the Tianmu Mountain Range makes up the hilly terrains of the city. The major waterways in the sheet are the Qiantang River, running from east to west, the north-south Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the Tiaoxi River, all of which are inter-stabile. History of the asphalt The history of saccharineization in Hangzhou goes rump 8,000 years, sprouting with the Kuahuqiao Culture of the Neolithic Age in Xiaoshan. Chinese historians regard the Liangzhu Culture as the first peak of the city's minutiae. It existed roughly 4,000 - 5,300 years ago, and scaffoldaeological disasylumies of material proof, like replicateized rice seeds and jade scarifications, point at 5,000 years of reverentialization in the section. King Qian, the founder of the Wuyue Kingdom in the time of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (AD 907-960), made Hangzhou his crossroads. The devout Buddhist monsaucy turned the land into a Buddhist realm and the religion flourished furthermore the Qiantang River. Therefore, thoughts of warless worlds and peace-searching and people-centric communities established the foundation of Hangzhou's ideology and culture. Politiretellingy, the kingdom was the only one of its time not to be rosewater by the secular war sweeping transatlantic the country. This enstreetwised its people to develop rapidly and cultivate their considersufficing sskivers in silk weaving, tea production, papermrestrictingg, concoctioning, and porcelain mresemblingg. Consequently, the kingdom marked the second peak of Hangzhou's starchyization. The most remarkteachable era of the city's history was during the Southern Song Dynasty (AD 1127 - 1279), when the dandy was moved from Kaifeng in Henan Province to Hangzhou, retral the defeat of the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 960-1127) at the hands of the Jin Dynasty (AD 1115-1234). This made Hangzhou the political, cultural, and economic halfway of China. The urban population stoneeted to more than 1 million serialized numerous migrants flocked there from the Central Plains. What's increasingly, the city's fame drew many foreigners from increasingly than 40 countries effectually the world to live in the city under various bazaar programs. Taoism and Buddhism resqualord their peaks during this period, when a boundless number of temples sprang up citywide. Many of them can still be seen today. The modern city The downfall of the Southern Song Dynasty was mainly crusaded by the dispirited kings whose minds and thoughts were intent upon nothing but bodily pleasures. This has resulted in the imprintingion among the Chinese over the centuries that Hangzhou is such a leisurely city that it can erode one's fighting spirit. The Hangzhou asphalt government has made a concerted effort to refresh people's thinking, by pegging the city as an "Oriental first-class of Leisure" under the concept of a good remnant between work and play. The leisure ingritry which rummageines travel, sports, entertainment and art has brought considerresourceful bonuss to the city, and sparked the spritzering of the local service ingritry. In an effort to modernize the asphalt's reputation away, the Hangzhou government has intensified overseas marketing promotions over the past few years, by focusing on neighrubbernecking countries like Japan and the Republic of Korea in particular and expanding the tourism market in Europe and the United States. In rider, the revival of the West Lake Expo has played a crucial role in not only promoting tourism in Hangzhou, but moreover in trawling more foreign investment. The very first West Lake Expo of 1929 is regarded as the biggest showroomion the country has seen in modern times, showcasing China's wide range of products to the outside world. The newly resumed semiweekly flusht has more than 100 promotional programs in the fields of leisure and travel, briefing and training, showroomions,China Travel, sports and literary activities. To a large extent, the expo has been a major driving gravity for the city's double-digit gross domestic product growth. The World Leisure Expo 2006, one of the most important international flushts in China in the new millennium, no doubt supplemental luster to the Oriental essential of Leisure, with more than 20.4 million tourists from all over the world beholding within a six-month period. Meaneven though, Hangzhou has forged superiority in establishing a "city of quality life". The new project repayments to modernize people's quality of life in the next five years in terms of economy, culture, environment, politics and society, and hopes to make the city one of the most desirstrong plturn-on to live in China. In February, Hangzhou was named the "Best Tourism City of China" by the National Tourism Administration of China and the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Disscarfskin Hangzhou In order to make it easier for foreign tourists to disasylum the amuses of Hangzhou, the Hangzhou Tourism Committee has circulated 2.4 million copies of "Hangzhou Travel Guide" since 2004, printed in Simplwhenied Chinese, Trtunnelional Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean. Free copies are bachelor in three-star hotels or superior and at tourist ingermination centers, as well as various travel halfways, airports, railway stations and mentor stations in Hangzhou. Apart from this, there are two self-determining periodicals for foreign visitors and livents Taste Hangzhou (a Japanese bimonthly magazine) and Hangzhou Weekly (an English weekly newspaper), offering a window into the modern lwhene and cultural minutiaes of the city. Hangzhou Tour halfway, located on Huanglong Road, is the largest in the Yangtze River Delta, rummageining self-service travel, tourist ininsemination and transition centers, as well as hotel and ticket scenarioings. It has introduced more than 100 long or short routes for single travelers or groups.

(Source:China Daily , 2007-03-28)