We rolled into Hangzhou early, which was kind of a surprise. My recent experience on T-class trains, shunted aside as the ugly older sister to the vivacious newness of China’s burgeoning high speed network, is that they are forced to wait, silently fuming, as the gleaming bullets of Freudian modernity zip hither and yon, a situation which always causes me to tack on 45 extra minutes to the arrival time when traveling by budget rail. Not this time. We were into Hangzhou on the overnight from Beijing a full 30 minutes ahead of schedule which begs the question…just what does one do in Hangzhou at 6:30 in the morning? Checking into the hotel is of course out of the question, so we hunkered down to a decent breakfast buffet at the modestly famous Zhiweiguan and plotted sites to see. And see them we have.
A quick visit to the Geely automotive factory headquarters was a refreshing exercise in forced optimism (Volvo deal is coming! Car sales in the Ukraine are up!) and evasiveness (the US market still has “regulatory issues” to be overcome). I suggested the strategy of a good car at a fair price to be politely quaint,