I just came back from a quick one-day/one-night trip to Hangzhou with John and company. We had late-night chicken hotpot, lunched and played UNO surrounded by the Longjin tea-fields in the mountains to the south-west of the West Lake, dined at the Banana Leaf Thai restaurant, and then drove home.

I'll have some cellphone pics up in a bit.

UPDATE: Here come the photos.

The hills are semi-terraced, the roots of the tea bushes holding the soil in steps, one for each row. You can see the ladies wearing straw hats climbing the mountain. Lots of college students had made the trip up to the mountains today too.

We had a huge lunch, RMB 30 for each person (about USD 4) with main ingredients being cured pork, bamboo shoots, fish, rice, veggies... and of course, green tea. We ate outdoors, and this made the food taste ten times better than it would have tasted indoors.

Summer hiking back down the mountain.