For the non-Chinese in the audience, Hangzhou is one of the traditional Beautiful Places in China; reams of poetry have been written about the various sights there, such as West Lake. (In my original caption I called it East Lake. I got confused because West Lake is actually east of East Lake; or at any rate it's east of at least 30 East Lakes, including the most important East Lake, which is, as I say, west of West Lake, although it is, admittedly, east of some West Lakes as well as some East Lakes. The Chinese do not find this confusing because it is, after all, West Lake.) Since I haven't read the poetry, most of the excitement went over my head. I believe this photo shows the areas mentioned in approximately sixteen poems ranging back about a thousand years or so, but I won't swear to it.

After we got back to Shanghai we only had time to do a few tourist things, like taking a cruise on the Huangpo River; then we went to Huangshan.