What is Qiandaohu?
Lately, Randy has been spending several days a month at his company's growing second location in 千岛湖 (Qiandaohu, or Thousand-Island Lake). They have actually had it for more than ten years, but only recently have they needed to expand the capacity there. His boss extended an invitation to our entire family to join Randy on one of his trips. Qiandaohu, he said, was a great place for all of us to go, with its beautiful lake and clean air.
This past week we took him up on this offer. Qiandaohu is described as being in Hangzhou, but that is merely a matter of government organization as it is more than a two-hour car ride from the train stations and airport that serve Hangzhou. The lake is actually a reservoir that resulted from a 1959 hydro-electric project damming up the Xin'An River, and the 1000 Islands (precisely, 1,078 islands) are the mountain tops that are now entirely surrounded by water. The recent development in this area has been focused on tourism (including the construction of vacation homes and resorts operated by international hoteliers like Sheraton, Hilton, and Intercontinental) as well as manufacturing. It's hard to think of a lakeside resort area as ideal or even welcoming of industry, but Qiandaohu is trying to be both.
More after the jump
When we arrived in Qiandaohu after a long day of travel (the train ride was fast, but the car rides were eternal), we were happy at last to see that our hotel was on the lake. We enjoyed beautiful views, but that was about it.
Despite having a lakefront, our hotel had no access to the water except for some fishing.
Myles and Brigid were a little disappointed; water, water everywhere, but not an obvious way to enjoy it.
Over the next few days, while Randy was busy with this sort of machine (which both kids now know is a push-through grinder, and can distinguish from a lapping machine, so the trip had some educational value as well),
the kids and I were occupied with trying to find why anyone would want to visit this lake as vacationers anyway with the "ruthless lake" and all.
In some ways, it made sense that the tourism and manufacturing would share the development of the Qiandaohu region. As we would find in the next few days, most of the entertainments would have less to do with enjoying anything remotely natural or even old and historical (our usual reasons for sight-seeing) and much more with fabricated attractions.
We spent a lot of time in Qiandaohu looking around places that were built just to give tourists something to do. I mean, one of the islands we visited on a boat tour was called "Lock Island" (锁岛 Suǒ dǎo ), an island completely dedicated to guess what? Locks! You know, the kinds you need a key or combination to open. No, the area isn't known for lock-making. It's just---locks. Locks you pay money to be photographed in front of, locks you pay money to unlock for luck, and thousands of locks people purchased to lock down their love or luck on this island.
Going to Qiandaohu was in some ways similar to going to Disneyland or Universal Studios, like it were a giant theme park, except I couldn't quite discern the theme.
I'll have more in the next post about what we saw and did, because I do find it fascinating what the developers of Qiandaohu have built to keep the tourists spending money. Because Randy's work will continue to bring him down there, we will likely have more trips to the area, particularly if he has a project that will consume more than a few days.
This past week we took him up on this offer. Qiandaohu is described as being in Hangzhou, but that is merely a matter of government organization as it is more than a two-hour car ride from the train stations and airport that serve Hangzhou. The lake is actually a reservoir that resulted from a 1959 hydro-electric project damming up the Xin'An River, and the 1000 Islands (precisely, 1,078 islands) are the mountain tops that are now entirely surrounded by water. The recent development in this area has been focused on tourism (including the construction of vacation homes and resorts operated by international hoteliers like Sheraton, Hilton, and Intercontinental) as well as manufacturing. It's hard to think of a lakeside resort area as ideal or even welcoming of industry, but Qiandaohu is trying to be both.
More after the jump
When we arrived in Qiandaohu after a long day of travel (the train ride was fast, but the car rides were eternal), we were happy at last to see that our hotel was on the lake. We enjoyed beautiful views, but that was about it.
Despite having a lakefront, our hotel had no access to the water except for some fishing.
Myles and Brigid were a little disappointed; water, water everywhere, but not an obvious way to enjoy it.
Over the next few days, while Randy was busy with this sort of machine (which both kids now know is a push-through grinder, and can distinguish from a lapping machine, so the trip had some educational value as well),
the kids and I were occupied with trying to find why anyone would want to visit this lake as vacationers anyway with the "ruthless lake" and all.
In some ways, it made sense that the tourism and manufacturing would share the development of the Qiandaohu region. As we would find in the next few days, most of the entertainments would have less to do with enjoying anything remotely natural or even old and historical (our usual reasons for sight-seeing) and much more with fabricated attractions.
We spent a lot of time in Qiandaohu looking around places that were built just to give tourists something to do. I mean, one of the islands we visited on a boat tour was called "Lock Island" (锁岛 Suǒ dǎo ), an island completely dedicated to guess what? Locks! You know, the kinds you need a key or combination to open. No, the area isn't known for lock-making. It's just---locks. Locks you pay money to be photographed in front of, locks you pay money to unlock for luck, and thousands of locks people purchased to lock down their love or luck on this island.
Going to Qiandaohu was in some ways similar to going to Disneyland or Universal Studios, like it were a giant theme park, except I couldn't quite discern the theme.
I'll have more in the next post about what we saw and did, because I do find it fascinating what the developers of Qiandaohu have built to keep the tourists spending money. Because Randy's work will continue to bring him down there, we will likely have more trips to the area, particularly if he has a project that will consume more than a few days.
Comments