The photo of Hangzhou Opera performance (photo number 6) I downloaded from https://hznews.hangzhou.com.cn/
Hangzhou Botanical Garden (杭州植物园), founded in 1956, is located in the northwest of the West Lake. It covers an area of 248.46 hectares where grow thousands of plants from 48 countries. Hangzhou Botanical Garden is not only a truly beautiful place to visit (especially during the cherry blossom season!), but also a prominent academic institution. It hosts a collection of more than 10,000 Chinese and foreign science books. Every year, it receives 2 million teachers and students from colleges and universities all around the world. More information is available here.
If you are planning to visit this area, you can combine it with the area north of the Botanical Garden, west from the Yugu Road (玉古路), Qingzhiwu (青芝坞) and Zhejiang University Yuquan Campus (浙江大学玉泉校区). It is packed with restaurants and bars. This is a very popular place (especially among students) for a leisurely stroll, a coffee or a brunch.
Close by is the Huanglong Sports Centre (黄龙体育中心), a multifunctional sports stadium built in 1994, one of the architectural landmarks of Hangzhou and one of the venues for Asian Games.
Opposite the street is the Yellow Dragon Cave Scenic Area (黄龙洞景区). This nice park has a special purpose. Here locals and tourists often come to seek happiness in marriage. Namely, inside of the park, there is a statue of six children carrying coins. Each child represents something: wealth (财), love (情), marriage (姻), culture (文), protection (literal meaning in ancient times was 10 soldiers, but the modern meaning of character is a bit different) (仕) and son (子).
You can also see Yellow Dragon Tucui" (黄龙吐翠) a waterfall coming out of the man-made golden dragon head.
Inside of the park is a small theater where you can watch a local style opera performance. It is known as Hangzhou Opera (杭剧), or Wulin Opera (武林班). The singing in Hangzhou dialect. Sitting down for a cup of tea and listening to a play, even without understanding a word can be an interesting experience. The costumes are very authentic, and the melodies are not something you would hear anywhere else.
I visited this park only once, as a chaperon on my daughter's kindergarten field trip. I did not have much time to look around, because two kids I was supposed to look after kept running away in different directions. What I do remember is that was a temple somewhere inside of a cave, and it was beautiful. I do not know where exactly is it, so it is up to you to find it. I also remember that this theatre performance kept the kids glued to their chairs, with their mouths open. I suspect they were focused on learning this very special technique of singing which clearly demonstrated that someone can be louder than them.
Seriously, this is something you need to hear.
Explanation:
Light blue stars mark Botanical Garden and places around, mentioned above.
I also added places where you can have lunch in the surrounding area (Western style restaurant is marked by fork and knife) or
a coffee and a cake.
In case you find this confusing, open the drop-down by clicking the symbol in the top left corner and uncheck what you do not want to see.
Area around Huanglong Sports Centre is full of restaurants and coffee shops.
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