Steve & Lynn
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Steve and Lynn in China
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Beijing: Day 2 - 4
- Day 3: A bus will pick us up at hotel and take us to Tiananmen Square, a short shopping trip, then to Forbidden City and Royal Summer Palace
- Day 4: We're off to see & climb the Great Wall which snakes thousands of miles across northern China, then to a jade factory, a place called The Path to Divinity, and a Chinese acrobatics show
Suzhou: Day 5 - 6
- Day 5: Mostly a travel day. We'll travel by plane from Beijing to Shanghai (about 2 hr flight). Then on to Suzhou for dinner and hotel stay.
- Day 6: We'll see Suzhou which is called the "Venice of the Orient" as it is an ancient town interlaced with canals. We'll visit Liu Garden and the Grand Canal before leaving town to visit a silk factory. Afterward we'll travel to Hangzhou by bus for dinner and overnight stay.
Hangzhou & Xitang: Day 7
- Hangzhou, with it's restored relics and architecture, is known as one of the six famous ancient capitals of China. It is home to the West Lake area - a large lake with picturesque scenery, parks, and tourist boating on the lake in small guided boats. It is also connected to Suzhou by the Grand Canal. Hangzhou is the 2nd most popular city of living quality in China.
- Xitang (Water Town) is a famous town with thousands of years of history dating back to 770 BC. The still water channels, quaint bridges, reflections on the water in early morning and the rosy sunset light, fishing boats and the glistening lights in the evening, all form a surreal collage of old world beauty. The people here are poor and living in ancient adjoined single story dwellings along the river canal that runs through the town. As you walk through the covered corridor that runs in front of the ancient homes along the river, you get a glimpse into the life of the common man of Xitang. You'll see TV's in most homes in sharp contrast to the poverty of everything else in the home. Most people either walk or ride bicycles or scooters.
- We return to Shanghai this evening to stay in a 5-star hotel close to the sports stadium.
Shanghai: Day 8
- Shanghai is a huge modern city with amazing architecture in it's downtown areas on each side of the Huangpu river. The west side of the river is Shanghai and the east side is Pudong . Shanghai has a lot of shopping, restaurants, and great views in the waterfront Bund area along the river. The architeture along the Bund is distinctly European colonial and they even have a building they call the "Baby Ben" (as it has a small clock tower on the end of the building). The Bund lies north of the old, walled city of Shanghai. It was initially a British settlement, but later the British and American settlements were combined into the International Settlement. A building boom in late 1800's to early 1900's led to the Bund becoming a major financial hub of East Asia. We began our day by walking along the Bund and then took an hour long river boat ride that gave us an excellent view of both sides of the river. The river is a major commercial thoroughfare busy with coal barges, boats with 10'x16' LCD advertising panels, and even a cruise ship. Our guide told us they had 72 cruise ships visit Shanghai last year and they plan to build more dock facilities for them.
- We visited the Buddhist Cheng Huang Temple, the Peoples Square, and a silk carpet factory. For dinner, the tour took us to a restaurant with food, dance, and music from southern China along the Thai border. After dinner, a few tour members took time to buy additional luggage to carry their souvenirs home. Then after returning to hotel, we were on our own for more shopping, sightseeing, or relaxing in our beautiful hotel.
Pudong: Day 9
- In the morning, as with most, we began our day with a great breakfast buffet at our Shanghai hotel that offered both western and oriental cuisine.
- Then we took a bus tour of downtown Pudong which has lots of recently built office buildings and skyscrapers with very unique modern architecture. We'll also went up to the 88th story Hyatt hotel observation deck. From there, you get a great view of Shanghai Bund (riverside) and Pudong. The Hyatt has an internal atrium that can be viewed straight down from the 88th floor which also has food, shopping, telescopes, etc. As a bonus, you'll also see the 101 story, 2nd tallest building in world, being built right next door to the Hyatt.
- From there we took an exciting Mag Lev train (said to be the world's fastest at 268 mph) to the Pudong airport which is an 1/2 hour out of town by car and 8 min by Mag Lev. By the way, Mag Lev stands for magnetic levitation whereby the train is actually riding on a magnetic field holding it one centimeter above the rails offering much reduced friction. At one point in the train ride, another Mag Lev train passed us going the opposite direction. It created a kind of shock wave that was heard as a boom when the train passed. The train was about 6 rail passenger cars long and passed us in .7 seconds ("a fast blur").
