E-Commerce Giant Alibaba in China

Welcome to Hangzhou, China! You’ve probably noticed how many people there are in this city! Along with being one of the most populous city in the Zhejiang Province, it’s also a popular tourist destination. 

Upon arrival to your hotel, your local guides will greet you and help you settle in. Before jumping into tours and attractions, today is a day where you decide what you’d like to do. Talk to your guides and they can help you pick some local areas to explore. You can also take a load off and relax. You have plenty of time to enjoy the great Hangzhou.

Today, you’ll be taking an extensive tour of Hangzhou including the outside of the Alibaba Company. During this tour, you’ll be exploring many different locations and attractions including taking a boat ride to discover some beautiful West Lake sceneries. West Lake is a place of tranquility and peace in Hangzhou so take a breath and enjoy the blissful scenes. 

Walk around the Guo Garden and learn about the unique history and and meaning of the garden designs. Get ready to do some work, because you’ll be picking tea leaves with tea farmers. After a bit of work, you’ll sip tea and learn about how the tea farmers make the tea leaves. Hangzhou is famous for Alibaba, silk, and tea so you’ll be tasting some delicious tea.

After a lunch break, your tour guide will take you to the outside of Alibaba and explain a bit about how this massive conglomerate has influenced the community. This will be your first stop at Alibaba, but not your last. There’s quite a lot to learn about the world’s largest company.

Now that you’ve seen the outside of Alibaba and learned a bit about it, it’s time to explore the inside. Your tour guide will take you through the Alibaba company and teach you more about how this massive company works. Alibaba.com was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma and started as a business-to-business site based out of Ma’s Hangzhou apartment. Now over two decades later, it’s one of the most prominent companies in the world.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited not only provides business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and consumer-to-consumer sales, although that’s what it’s most known for, it also has data-centric cloud computing services, a shopping search engine, and provides electronic payment services. Your tour guide will tell you more about the history of Alibaba as well as the journey the company took to become what it is today. 

You’ll also learn about how Alibaba not only influenced the world from helping smaller businesses in other countries to grow large, but also influenced Hangzhou. For example, Alibaba created Alipay, a mobile app that allows you to pay through it rather than through cash. The majority of businesses and services accept Alipay and most citizens are more than happy to embrace the mobile app making Hangzhou the largest mobile payment city in the world.  

Hefang Street is a famous street in Hangzhou because it’s brimming with culture and history and is even a symbol of ancient Hangzhou. This is where you’ll be exploring today! Wander through the street making sure to stop by various shops and local eateries. You can see the beautiful antique buildings, taste local delights, and enjoy historic and cultural artefacts that will give you a better idea of ancient Hangzhou and ancient China.

If you’re interested in Chinese medicine, then you’ve come to the right place. There are many shops that specialize in Chinese medicine in Hefang Street. Be sure to stop by Hu Quing Yu Tang, a Chinese medicine shop and museum. Here, you can learn about traditional Chinese medicine and hear anecdotes of Chinese doctors. If you’re wanting to learn more about Chinese medicine, make sure to stop by the many shops that specialize in it and are located in Hefang Street. 

As mentioned before, Hangzhou is famous for Alibaba, tea, and silk so today we’ll be exploring the China National Silk Museum. This museum is one of the world’s largest textiles and costumes museum and has a multitude of exhibitions. During this tour, you’ll learn about the history of silk in China and see many historical ancient Chinese silks. The museum also displays textiles from other fibers as well as costumes from around the world. 

Along with seeing many unique and ancient textiles, you’ll learn about the historic Silk Road, an ancient network of trading routes connecting the East to the West. The Silk Road was a major way that the different cultures interacted and traded. There’s A lot to learn about ancient China, and you’ll learn quite a lot at the China National Silk Museum. 

Today we will be taking a tour of the Former Residence of Hu Xueyan, a famous businessman in the end of the 19th century who had many adventures and amazing stories. One of his stories is the building of his home that has traditional Chinese architectural features alongside Western styles. As you walk through this historic home, notice that many of the rooms meld together with the garden, blending the indoor and outdoors. 

The construction of the home took about three years and many precious woods were used in the construction including wood from Ginkgo trees, rosewood, Chinese beech, and more. The building materials and overall design of the home could rival that of the imperial palace, except that this home is much more compact and the main gate is not as spacious as many other gates at the homes of dignitaries. 

Make sure to take a walk through the garden and enjoy the pond around the residence. There are many elegant pavilions located around the lake to explore. Take note of interesting architectural designs. This home is certainly extravagant, yet peaceful.

Spend your last day exploring around the area and talking to your local guides. Now that you’ve learned more about Hangzhou and Alibaba, you may have more questions you’d like to ask. Your guides will be happy to answer and give you more insight into the Hangzhou culture.

Relax a bit before leaving and reminisce on your favorite parts of the trip. Hangzhou is a large, historic city that’s filled with culture and community. You’ll leave knowing you’ve had invaluable experiences and have learned so much about another culture.