Great Wall at Sima Tai stretching into the distant background, Beijing September 2005
The Great Wall at Sima Tai outside of Beijing, September 2005
Great Wall at Sima Tai, September 2005
Looking across the Forbidden City from Jingshan, Beijing September 2005
At the Temple of Heaven, Beijing October 2005
Summer Palace Panorama, Beijing October 2005
Weiming Lake on the campus of Beijing University, October 2005
Nanjing
We visited Nanjing in March for three days. Despite drizzling rain the first day, days two and three proved to be beautiful for sightseeing around the city and on Purple Mountain where most of the historic and cultural sites are located. Nanjing is our favorite city in China so far. It's a good blend of the modern and the traditional: beautiful skyline with many new highrise offices and apartments, tree-lined streets, relaxing parks, and important cultural and historic sites. After living in Shanghai, Nanjing (despite being a major city in its own right) had a much less hectic feel to it. We stayed at the Xuanwu Hotel which was conveniently right across from the entrance to beautiful Xuanwu Lake and the ancient city walls as well as right around the corner from the Lion Gate pedestrian street. We visited Zhonghua Men (Zhonghua Gate), Fuzi Miao (Confucian Temple), Zongtong Fu (Presidential Palace), Xuanwu Hu (Xuanwu Lake), Ming Xiao Ling (Ming Xiao Imperial Tomb), Zhongshan Ling (Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum), Linggu Ta (Linggu Pagoda), and rode the super long chair lift to the top of Purple Mountain. We skipped the Nanjing Massacre museum (graphically detailing Japan's horrific wartime atrocities) because we had the kids with us. We really had a terrific time--best of all, it's only a three hour train ride away from Shanghai and we plan to visit again in the future.
The Zhonghua Gate Citadel protecting the southern entrance to the city. It could garrison 3000 defending troops.
The Confucian Temple in Nanjing--where would-be scholars came to take the imperial exams
Animal Guardians Along the Path to the Ming Tomb
Plum Blossom Hill Pavilion at Ming Xiao Ling
After climbing the 392 steps to the top of Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum
Smith Family outside the mausoleum housing Sun Yat Sen's sarcophogus
Proof of the kids' celebrity status--college girls lining up to take pictures with the kids
More proof--celebrity stop number 23 in under one hour
Yet another stop to take pictures...
Beautiful Linggu Pagoda
Smiling Smith women on the Purple Mountain chair lift
The boat captain and his first mate on Xuanwu Lake
Scenery around Xuanwu Lake, Nanjing
A view of the well-preserved Ming City Walls around Xuanwu Lake
Guilin and Yangshuo
Our five day trip to Guilin and Yangshuo was by far the best trip we've made so far. Day one started a little rough because our 1630 flight from Shanghai to Guilin was postponed until 0030 the next morning due to maintenance issues. This is apparently not uncommon here (trains remain the most reliable travel method). Fortunately, the travel agency notified us about this before we left for the airport so we spent the time comfortably at home rather than waiting in the cigarette smoke-filled passenger terminal with 200 annoyed Chinese fellow-travelers. We left for the airport from our apartment at 2230--kind of felt like the Von Trapp family sneaking out in the middle of the night because our security guards were surprised to see us going somehwere with bags packed that time of night. No problems at the airport though and made it safe and sound to our Guilin hotel at 0400 Sunday morning.
Day Two officially began at 1200 with lunch followed by a super-packed afternoon touring schedule. By 1900 we had done the following: climbed a series of waterfalls in straw sandals, taken a raft ride on a mountain lake, hiked to the top of the mountain to enjoy the surrounding views, crossed a deep chasm on a rather rickety 300 foot long steel cable bridge, came back down the mountain individually by zip line (should have seen the kids' faces on this one), rode a two-mile alpine slide-like sled to a place called Crown Cave, explored the cave by boat (it was formed by a subterranean river), and finally made it back into the city for a terrific Guilin dinner. Slept like the dead.
Day three began at 0730 with a bus ride to the Li River dock to catch our boat for the four-hour trip to Yangshuo. The Li River passes through the amazing fairyland mountain scenery down here. If you've ever seen the Chinese paintings with the incredibly steep limestone mountains jutting up by the dozens with little pagodas clinging impossibly to their sides and tops, then you can picture the landscape. I always thought those paintings were surely stylized and the landscapes exaggerated. I can testify it ain't so--the place comes exactly as depicted in those paintings. Yangshuo is a bustling backpacker tourist town of about 300,000 people deep in the middle of this landscape. The people here are mostly ethnic minorities (Zhuang, Dong, Miao, etc) and the Mandarin is heavily accented. We visited a place called the Silver Cave, the world's largest Banyan tree, Moon Hole Mountain, West Street, and then capped off the evening by attending a terrific ethnic minority show set outdoors on the Li River with twelve of the limestone peaks serving as the backdrop.
Day four was spent seeing more sights in Yangshuo (including a bamboo raft ride deep in the mountains) before heading back to Guilin where we saw Elephant Trunk Mountain (the name explains it), Fubuo Mountain (with it's Song Dynasty Buddha rock carvings), and a walking tour through the pagodas, gardens, and lakes of downtown Guilin.
Day five was back to the airport in the morning to catch our uneventful flight back home to Shanghai (which really does feel like home now). If any of you are interested in making a side trip with us back to Guilin during your visits, I'd be happy to set it up. We traveled with a Chinese tour group (I translated as much as I could), and stayed at nice four-star hotels for a measly $350.00 per person (which included airfare). The Li River cruise is only doable during the Spring months because it's not deep enough the rest of the year for the larger river boats. An English-speaking tour guide automatically more than doubles the tour price. The airfare alone for a self-guided tour is more expensive than the entire package costs if you go with a Chinese package tour.
Some of the breath-taking scenery on our Li River cruise
Michelle and the kids as they climbed a series of waterfalls near Guilin
Taking in the beautiful Yangshuo scenery during an early morning bamboo raft ride
Sabrina's slightly worried expression as she flies down the zipline outside Guilin
The beautiful view from the entrance to Silver Cave outside Yangshuo
The Smith Family somewhere around Yangshuo
Steven and souvenirs patiently waiting in Guilin Airport for the flight back home to Shanghai
I dream of flying my own ultralight over Yangshuo and the Li River valley...
Yangshuo scenery in the early morning light
Putuoshan
Made a terrific three day trip the first weekend in May to the Buddhist holy island of Putuoshan. The island is dedicated to the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy named Guanyin and is one of the four most holy Buddhist places in China. More than three dozen temples dot the island with hundreds more little roadside shrines everywhere else. We took an overnight ferry down from Shanghai--left at 2000 and arrived at 0730 the next morning. Slept amazingly well on the boat because of the gentle rocking motion. The ferry was actually probably the kids' favorite part of the trip. They reckon that when you've seen one Buddhist temple complex, you've seen them all (they're sort of right).
Day one we hiked from the dock to our hotel in the middle of the island (it's small enough where you can walk most places--the island I mean) and checked in early to drop off our backpacks before exploring the rest of the island. With our trusty Lonely Planet in hand, we set off on foot to explore the beautiful tree-lined streets and back alleys on the way to some of the main temples on the island. After living in the cacophony of Shanghai for the last four months, it was amazing to suddenly be in a very quiet and peaceful place. We've become accustomed to being surrounded by noise all the time and the best part of being on Putuoshan was remembering what silence was like again. Very soothing.
We visited a ton of places on the first day including Puji Temple, Immortal Well, Chaoyang Cave, Hundred Step Beach, Thousand Step Beach, Da Cheng An Temple, and Huiji Temple which is perched on top of the highest mountain on the island. At Immortal Well, Michelle and I drank the water pulled up in a tin can on a string while Sabrina only chose to wash her hands with the water and Steven shied away from anything to do with it. The water was super refreshing--if we develop any adverse symptoms in the next few days, we don't expect any sympathy from Steven. On the other hand, we're supposed to be immortal now that we drank the water. Sabrina's hands will be well preserved. Steven will die at his regularly appointed time. We rode the tram to Huiji Temple and then hiked down the 1088 steps to the bottom while dozens of Buddhist pilgrims hiked their way to the top with prayer beads in their hands and sweat beads on their foreheads. I started a conversation with a couple of monks from Anhui Province and they were kind enough to let me take a picture of them with the kids who weren't exactly sure about the men wearing dresses with shaved heads. We have now educated them more on Buddhism and monks so that they won't be leary of either in the future. Final site of the day was South Heaven Gate Temple. Probably hiked a total of seven miles on the first day.
Day two started early with a visit to the massive statue called Guanyin of the South Sea followed by the Guanyin Leap Temple, Purple Bamboo Forest, and finally a hike along the Western Paradise trail. We checked out of the hotel at noon and walked back down to the pier to catch our highspeed catamaran back to Shanghai which only took four hours this time. It was a nice relaxing trip. The kids liked it, but ranked it behind Guilin and Nanjing as their favorite trip so far in China.
Our cabin aboard the overnight ferry
Walking down the stairs to the Well of Immortality
Steven and Sabrina sitting with Buddhist monks who are on their pilgrimage to Putuoshan
Looking across the rooftops of the Da Cheng An Temple
Guanyin of the South Seas panorama
Smiths with Guanyin of the South Sea
A shot of Michelle shooting Steven shooting Sabrina with the Lion
Monk sounding the conch horn--not sure what this is for... Anyone out here know?
Smith Family in front of Puji Temple
Chinese boy curiously watching us walk by
Hangzhou
Another month, another trip to a new city--this time to beautiful Hangzhou. There's a saying in China that goes something like "Above there is heaven, below there are Suzhou and Hangzhou "--meaning that Suzhou and Hangzhou are the earth's equivalent of heaven. People here also say "Shanghai is for working and Hangzhou is for living" and from what we saw, they're right. Hangzhou is a beautiful "little" city of about 6.5 million people. It's got broad tree-lined streets, beautiful parks, interesting buildings and very friendly people. Its geography is also hard to beat for natural beauty--with the ocean on the east side and low green mountains on the west side. Best of all, Hangzhou has West Lake (Xi Hu) which makes it a tourist mecca for millions of people every year--second only to Guilin in terms of tourist numbers. The weather while we were there was perfect--blue cloudless skies and temps in the mid-80's.
We got started a little late on day one because our train from Shanghai to Hangzhou was almost an hour late getting into Shanghai from wherever it came before that. But we still made it down in good time (only takes about two hours on the fast express) and were able to visit a few places before checking into our hotel which was right on the lake. We went and saw Lingyin Temple (I told you all before that when you've seen one Buddhist temple, you've seen them all--holds true for Lingyin) and then took a tram ride to the top of nearby Northern Peak Mountain (Bei Gao Feng Shan). With the perfect weather, we had a great panoramic view of the entire city and West Lake (see the photos below). After coming down the mountain, and not being able to find a cab anywhere, we walked about a mile to the nearest bus stop and hopped on the next bus to anywhere hoping it would take us back to a more populated part of the city where we could find a cab to the hotel. Actually turned out to be a fun ride because we saw parts of the city we wouldn't have seen otherwise. After checking in, we went back out on the streets to explore the city a little more before heading to Wu Shan Square with it's famous night market and restaurants. We ended up buying some really beautiful hand-embroidered silk landscapes (Michelle's early B-day presents) and a few things for the kids before making it back to the hotel around 2200.
Day two was our marathon sight-seeing day. We started out at 0800 and after breakfast made our way across the street to West Lake. We originally planned to walk everywhere, but passed a bike rental place on the street and made the spot decision to rent bikes--turned out to be the best decision we made on the trip because we had a blast. We rode around the entire lake and across both causeways in about three hours and saw all the famous pagodas, temples, gardens, museums, etc. Michelle met some tourists from Cameroon and one of the men jokingly asked her for a ride on the back of the bike. Michelle jokingly replied "sure!" and to her surprise the guy actually jumped on board. She pedaled off down the hill we were on, whizzing past all the Chinese tourists who thought the whole thing was very amusing. After completing the ride around the lake (Michelle's Cameroon friend hopped off at the bottom of the hill), we ate lunch and then visited the Yellow Dragon Cave (not much of a cave, but the park was pretty), Yue Fei's Mausoleum (hero general during the Song Dynasty), the gardens on the western shore of the lake and then rented a boat for an hour. By this time we were pretty bushed so we went back to a pedestrian street to get dinner before picking up our luggage at the hotel and making our way to the train station for the ride back to Shanghai.
We had a really good time. The kids now rate Hangzhou second only to Guilin as their favorite place in China so far. Michelle and I both have it tied with Nanjing as being our favorite city.
Smith Family biking around West Lake
Hangzhou Baochu Pagoda from West Lake
Hangzhou Panorama from Bei Gao Feng Shan
Steven and Sabrina resting during a break in our bike ride
Beautiful West Lake Scenery--it would have been about the same 700 years ago
More West Lake Scenery
Scenery from one of the gardens surrounding West Lake
West Lake boating with Wu Shan Pavilion in the background
