Pictures from our trip to China in May 2005.
First we spend two days in Beijing hanging out with family and goofing off.
Dinner with my parents, grandma, uncle, aunt, cousin.
Jade and my cousin at a Karaoke place. They also provided buffet lunch which made me happy.
My grandma's cat still remembers me from three years ago where I tried to train his manners. He hisses and attacks me whenever I'm in reach. I used the zooming lense
to get the first picture. Strangely the cat likes to violate my Teva.
My grandma. She's turning 85 in July.
After a few days in Beijing, my parents and us took a train tour. The tour
starts in Mt. Huangshan, which is about 200 miles west of Shanghai. We took
an overnight train from Beijing and arrived at Mt.
Huangshan at 5:40am.
Mt. Huangshan train station. As soon as we got off the train we got swampped by buzzards trying to sell us maps, raincoats, gloves and cheap hiking shoes. They followed us across the street
and everywhere else. Even when we got on the bus they were still trying to sell through the windows.
We took a cable car to the ridge, this saved us a hike with 3000ft elevation gain. Very important for my parents since our lodge is still over 6 miles of hike from top of the cable car.
The view from the ridge is spetacular even with cloud and fog.
These stairs are carved out of the sheer cliff. I hate to be the workers who constructed it. The couple next to Jade are on their honeymoon.
They build a dam in the middle of the mountain. The creek below the dam is super steep, probably in the range of 1000ft/mile.
Another option to get the top is to hire these guys to carry you up. They charge 1,170 Yuan from bottom to the top, which is around $145.
We stayed in a pseudo hotel just below the top ridge. All the guys shared a room full of bunks and the serious snorers kept me up all night. We got up at
four in the morning on second day to hike to the peak at around 6000 ft to catch the sunrise, which is well worth the effort.
The tour guide couldn't explain how these rocks got there. But they all have strange names. Chinese people are very imaginative.
I don't know how that platform got there or its purpose.
Then we bumped into a group of lamas.
On the way down the mountain we keep on running into these cargo guys. They make
50 Yuans, which is around $6, a day carrying huge loads up 3000ft, up to three
trips a day. The guy in the second picture is carrying two bags of concrete. Each
bag said 50 kg. It's appearently cheaper to hire them than to use the cable cars
for cargos. During a break the concrete guy let Jade try his load. She could only
get one bag off the steps.
After we hiked off the mountain, our tour guide took us to a tea house that sells
Mao Feng tea. They
demostrated some really neat way to make tea. Then my dad bought a huge bag of
tea leaves from them after some serious price haggling. The tour guide gets a
commission from our purchase.
Our next stop is some kind of a zoo where they let us feed the black bears with apple dangling from a bamboo stick. They also had live chicken for feeding. I'm glad no one took up on that offer.
Last stop of the day 2 is a monastery. The local monk made us pay 100 Yuan for some incense then lectures us about buying more treasures from them. Fortunate
for Jade and I we couldn't understand exactly which treasure we were suppose to buy to ensure our luck and happiness. The master monk who had a private
consultation session with the two of us couldn't be older than 25.
Our hotel on day 2 is right next to the train station. I could hit the track with a football from our window. The noise wasn't bad until around 3:30am when the arrival frequency increased.
On day 3 we took a three hour boat ride to an man
made lake that has over 1,000 islands.
The bank of the river are full of tea plants.
Our tour group changed and now we hooked with a mostly useless guide and another honeymoon couple from Tsingtao.
One island has an ostreich farm. Very odd place for it.
Another island has a snake farm, and a cave that we walked through where snake hang freely from the ceiling.
The tour took us to Hangzhou
on day 4. The tour group is shrinking day by day and now we're down to just
the four of us but we got two tour guides.
We saw two peacocks in a garden.
Our guide shows us a one Yuan bill with a picture of three concrete lamps in a lake, then shows us the real thing.
Then another tea house that sells the really expensive Xi
Hu Long Jing tea where we all bought tea leaves to bring home even though
I don't drink tea.
Then we learn how to pick tea leaves from a plant.
Third stop is an unversity from gazillion years ago and we happened to catch a live show in progress.
Last stop of the day is the China
National Silk Museum where they had a fashion show.
Last stop is Shanghai. It was pretty boring. The only excitement was my dad getting lost by himself for two and half hours. I didn't like the food there except for these watermelons on a chopstick.
Then we took another overnight train back to Beijing.
The train stopped in Cangzhou
for three minutes. Another uncle of mine met us at the station and brought two
big bags of food consisted of two roasted chickens, two pig feet, bread and beer.
I focused on the chicken, bread and beer. Much better than the junk they served
on the train.
Back to Beijing, Jade and my cousin goes on a two day pearl shopping craze. I was somewhat bored.
Even the cute girls in the store couldn't keep me interested in the pearl and I had to do something.
