Shanghai - by Graham

We went to Shanghai today. It was a two and a half hour drive to there, but it was worth it. the bustling city is quite beautiful, even though the salespeople keep bugging us. Oh well.

P.S. are trip ends on Thursday, so this is the third to last post.


P.S.S. we won't be able to see your posts, but you can ask us questions starting Thursday night. Still, keep posting!!!!

On the Road Again

Today was fairly exciting, as we left Xian for Xiangzhou via plane immdiatly after an early breakfast, eating lunch on the plane. Arriving in the early afternoon, we first toured a educational, if sweltering museum of ancient chinese medicine before enjoying shopping in a nearby makertplace. After retiring for a rest hour in our very nice hotel, we then went to a nearby restaurant for a wonderful dinner. After polishing off the meal, we returned to our rooms and killed an hour watching a chinese children's show which seemed to mix Barney-esque characters with a reality TV system for a suprisingly intense program!

Today we visited the Summer Place along with 60,000 other Beijingers on May 1st a national holiday in Communist China. The ride on the dragon boat was the highlight. The park was beautiful although it was hazy with smog that accumulated after the winds died down the evening before.

Graham enjoys exploring the jade factory/museum. Here is is checking out a huge jade sailing ship. Most of the prices were a bit out of our league but we learned a lot about jade. Do you know that hard jade is almost as hard as a diamond?

We enjoyed speeding through the narrow alleys of a Beijing neighborhood by rickshaw and having lunch in a local home. Although we only met the resident briefly she told us a bit about her life style in Beijing. Her home has running water, but no septic hook up - so she must visit the public facility when nature calls. The food was good, although I prefer it when the food isn't looking back at me.

The Temple of Heaven may be everyone's favorite spot so far. It's located in a large park in Beijing and this morning it was filled with friendly people. Lots of locals were there playing games, ribbon dancing, ballroom dancing, and practicing all sorts of martial arts. If you stopped a watched for a minute or two, they were sure to ask you to join them! Lots of Chinese tourists were there too and they all wanted to have their pictures taken with Graham and An Lee. As soon as the camera snapped one photo, the Chinese person would jump away and before Graham and An Lee could move two more would jump in for another photograph! The kids were a little baffled, but they seemed to enjoy the movie star attention. The temple itself was impressively large and beautiful and it emitted a real sense of tranquility.

The Great Wall is certainly aptly named. We hiked about a mile in one direction today (mostly up, as Graham mentioned) and then a mile back. Hard to believe that the whole thing was started 2500 years ago and it was finished before Columbus sailed.