My name is Yuko, I come from Japan. After having lived in different parts of the world, I came to Hangzhou 15 years ago. I love Hangzhou for its beautiful balance between history and modernity, nature and city. And I have always tried to stay between a local and a tourist; that is, I make myself feel at home, yet I’m curious to discover new things here.
Below are the top 10 things I enjoy doing with my 8- and 10-year-old kids.
Visit the Hangzhou Botanical Gardens
Hangzhou has one of the most beautiful botanical gardens in China. Situated within a tourist area near West Lake, it’s so huge inside that you never feel crowded at any time of the day or year. You can place picnic mats, walk under hundred-year-old camphor trees and visit the Han Meilin Museum (Han Meilin is one of the greatest masters of Chinese modern art.)
Kids love the colorful paintings of animals and sculpture pieces such as ‘Mother and Child.’ There is a gigantic Buddha head at the museum entrance too! Opposite from the Botanical Garden is the Flower Nursery. Here, the highlights are the impressive pine tree bonsai garden and the orchid nursery (hidden, but possible to observe from outside how professionals take care of rare species of orchids.)
Take a Sunrise Boat at West Lake
I only ever visit West Lake at sunrise – that’s my recommendation to avoid the crowds and enjoy the peace. The day before, book the smallest boat (they seat 4 to 6 people) at the earliest possible time – ideally just before the sunrise; prepare a packed breakfast and bottled hot coffee, and blankets in the colder season. Meet the boatman, and as the boat departs the shore, you start to notice the disappearance of darkness… and the sun slowly appearing.
Regardless of which route you choose, almost the whole lake is yours at this time of the day. Even if you come across another boat, you will want to say hello to each other (not the case in the crowded daytime.) Make sure the kids learn some historical stories about West Lake from the boatman, as well as the names of birds and plants unique to West Lake. Believe it or not, the sunrise has an invisible energy for our life, so it’s something I insist in doing with my kids at least once a year.
Go to the Temples in the Morning
As a parent not practicing any religion, it has been a question for me how to teach kids what religion, or belief is. Hangzhou is said to have had thousands of Buddhist temples in early history, and today hundreds remain, such as the famous Lingyin and Jingshan Temples. But I don’t want the kids to think that the temples are just theme parks with Buddha statues…. so I take my kids to temples only in the early morning.
Many temples open their doors to religious people for morning chanting – it is before tourists start to come in, and it is when the temples are in true peace and dignity. We observe the ritual, enjoy the humble breakfast with the monks and walk around to find gems of art and history. The kids love following the path of Ji Gong, a historical monk who once lived in Jingci Temple and other temples in Hangzhou – his character and deeds are similar to those of Robin Hood!
Explore the Artisan Markets
There is a rapidly growing trend for artisan markets in Hangzhou. Almost every weekend, you can find some markets going on in different locations in the city. We can spend the whole day there – I enjoy tasting different craft beers while kids search for interesting toys or accessories to buy. So far, the kids’ best catch was the dragon figures made by 3D printing bought in a weekend market at Tianmuli Square.
Enjoy Hangzhou’s Jazz Scene
Hangzhou is one of the earliest cities in China to host live jazz bands from overseas, thanks to the JZ Club, which has been there for almost 20 years on the crowded side of West Lake. In addition, most music clubs and bars in Hangzhou are very safe and clean (non-smoking), so I have been taking my kids to jazz clubs since they were 3 years old. There are a few good clubs now with, at times, very high level international and Chinese jazz musicians. A few musicians told me they felt much more energy from the audience in Hangzhou than in Shanghai!
Play Hide and Seek in the Tea Plantations
Going for a nature walk is always a good way to understand your city from different perspectives. From the top of a mountain, you see for the first time how the city is structured. Our city has developed around two main bodies of water – West Lake and the Qiantang River. If you follow with your eyes to the west side of the West Lake, and zoom in (if possible), you will see something very unique to Hangzhou…Longjing tea trees.
From afar, they look like a big herd of sheep as they are round and not so tall. Normally after the harvest season in spring, the tea plantations are peacefully abandoned for the kids to play hide and seek with the ‘green sheep’, as we call them!
Discover the Contemporary Art Scene
China’s most popular and competitive art school is in Hangzhou, which is why it’s called the China Academy of Art while the one in Beijing is the Central Academy of Fine Arts. So, see the difference, right? China is such a rapidly changing society, and artists, whenever and wherever, are the first people to express best the ‘feeling’ of the time and place. So I visit with my kids every year’s graduation exhibitions at the China Academy of Art.
Now the campuses have spread to different locations (the newest one is very close from HIS!) and exhibitions may sometimes take place in museums or commercial facilities too, but we visit all… to try to interpret ‘what’s happening here now.’ Surprisingly, the kids interpret better than I do!
Appreciate the Traditional Local Arts
It’s not surprising at all Hangzhou has the nation’s best art university… as it has always been an artistic city. From early history to today, it has produced numerous talented painting and calligraphy artists, and the city has done an amazing job to preserve many of the original pieces at its important sites. One worthwhile angle to study is the placards, known as paibian in Mandarin, and the couplets, duilian.
You will see them as one set in almost any historical architecture. It’s a good way to study Mandarin and to learn some words of wisdom from Chinese philosophy. Many of them were written by historically famous artists or political leaders and have been made into beautiful, sustainable artwork, while in many other cities, they may have been done by computer fonts. West Lake is definitely a gem of these paibian and duilian, so I have told my kids to make a book to collect all someday.
Head out into the Countryside
Coming from the hotel business myself, I feel kind of tired of being ‘served’ sometimes. So, for some holidays, I have instead headed to ‘ecological villages’, all within 1 or 2-hour’s drive from Hangzhou, where everyone can be a staff and a guest at the same time, and a master of the place. It’s definitely a new lifestyle and business model which gives us a chance to reconsider where ‘life’ comes from and how ‘community’ works when we are in total nature with minimum modern comfort. This year we enjoyed the rice that the kids raised and harvested last year… and it’s full of memories of getting muddy and swimming in the streams.
Pick up a Good Read at a Bookstore
It seems as if bookstores are disappearing everywhere in the world, but it’s still one of the best places to spend on a rainy day. One favorite is Tsutaya Bookstore, a traditional Japanese chain, in Tianmuli Square. Photogenic outside and inside, it has a cafe and a salon, as well as their huge collection of imported books and stationery (it was the first Tsutaya to open in China in 2020, and prior reservation was required to visit for the first several months!).
The other is Xiaofeng Bookstores, a local Hangzhou chain established in the 1990s. Their book collection is rather more on the modern literature side, with some Chinese classical and some overseas influenced titles. But the interesting point is that the stores are built in the most intellectually iconic spots of Hangzhou – inside the national museums, universities, press offices, and even temples and hospitals! It’s always been a weekend treat for the kids to visit one of these bookstores and spend hours to choose one of two books that I promised to buy for them.
Yuko is a member of the HIS Parents and Friends Association (PAFA)