XiHu has influenced poets and painters throughout the ages for its natural beauty and historical relics, and it has been among the most important sources of inspiration for Chinese garden designers.  

XiHu was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, and was described as having “influenced garden design in the rest of China as well as Japan and Korea over the centuries”.      

The sky was getting dark by then, and we were pretty exhausted too. So, we decided to go back to the hotel. Instead of walking back via the same way, we continued to walk up front to look for the exit.

On the way, saw some temples, pagodas, gardens and artificial islands within the lake. The light had been turned on a bit later, creating a different atmosphere to the place.

LeiFeng Pagoda is a 5-story tall tower with eight sides, located on Sunset Hill south of XiHu. Originally constructed in the year AD 975, it collapsed in 1924 due to a superstitious believe that the bricks from the tower cold repel illness or prevent miscarriage, so many people stole bricks from the tower to grind into powder for oral consumption. Oh my.    The pagoda was rebuilt in 2002. Since then it has been a popular tourist attraction.    

Leifeng Pagoda is one of the 10 sights of XiHu because of the Legend of the White Snake.    At its most basic, the story tells about a young scholar who falls in love with a beautiful woman, unaware that she is a white snake who has taken on human form. A monk intervenes in order to save the scholar’s soul and casts the white snake into a deep well at the Lei Feng Pagoda.   Over centuries, the story has evolved from horror story to romance story with the scholar and the white snake-woman genuinely in love with each other. But such a relationship is forbidden by the laws of Heaven…