China Part 1

11/18/07 - hey there all...getting a chance to update my blog...woo-hoo...here are the first set of pictures from china...its shanghai through beijing...i had a few days by myself and then joined a tour of americans...i know...not my usual....but in the end it was a wonderful trip, especially because i was traveling with my good friend cynthia...you'll see her in here somewhere :) on in the next two sets...we hung together with this tour for an entire month...it rocked...i took the train to beijing, then flew to shanghai and then joined the rest of the folks there....below is just the beginning...enjoy....

when you come in by train from mongolia, they need to switch the gauge wheels, as they are different from mongolia to china...china's are the weird ones...and they aren't going to change them...so in the picture above the train, with us on it, has been lifted, the wheels have been removed and you can see one of the workers making sure everything goes smoothly...it was a cool experience...but very hard to photograph from the inside of the train....

this is jay from canada...we met on the train from moscow to ulan bataar and then were on the same train from ulan bataar to beijing...we found it hilarious that you could buy budweiser and pabst blue ribbon once you crossed the border in china...we just had to take the picture....

here is shanghai at night from my hotel room...it was at the end of the strip where there was a pedestrian walkway...and man, shanghai is all lit up every night :) its a very cosmopolitan place...i really liked it even though i would be dripping wet from the humidity in a matter of seconds there....yuck!

this is the waterfront of shanghai, also known as the bund...and the big funky looking building is a TV tower that we went up...but the weather didn't really cooperate..it was still really cool...

this is a section of shanghai refered to as chinatwon...which i think is really funny...but it has an incredible water garden within it...this guy was cleaning the water from this boat and feeding all of the coy fish in the pond...he was amazing at keeping his balance...lots of practice i guess...

here's another section of the garden outside of another water garden in chinatown...i love all of the architecture and care they put into the statues and design of the garden...it all has to do with feng shui...an interesting and important concept in all of china....

this is the great museum of chinese art in shanghai...also known as the big dumpling cooker...as this is what a dumpling cooker looks like in china....the museum had an incredible selection of things to look at and read about....as chinese history is long and huge....

welcome to the tourist tunnel...this is actually what you can take between one side of the bund and the other to get to the tv tower...we also took the metro that was clean, easy and efficient...amazing....this tunnel was crazy and cynthia and i laughed the entire way across...hilarious!!!!

here is the marriot of shanghai...my favorite high rise building...i loved the points and the sphere at the top...and there were so many cool buildings to choose from...but this was my favorite...

outside of shanghai we went to a water village known as zhu jia jiao...which was like stepping back in time...i am so glad i went here...we had incredible food, walked through all of these twisty and turning, small retail streets and took a sanpan ride...and the guy rowed us and everything...it was super cool :)

this was one of the only times i actually saw a chinese person wearing one of these hats...although you can get them at all the tourist shops...when i came in on the train, i saw many farmers with them on...but no where else really except this water village...

in this same village there was an amazing garden...the garden of mr. mah...i loved his doorways and waterways...i especially like this one....

outside of shanghai we also went to suzhou...and in order to get there you needed to take a bullet train...my first!!!! at times we were moving so fast that it almost made me sick to try and watch things out the window...the speed was incredible....it was quite comfortable and quite crowded...

while in this town we visited a silk factory...here is a machine that is helping wind the strands of eight silk worms together to make a stronger more durable strand....these are used for silk rugs and it was cool to watch how fast the machine worked after the worker set it up to go....

the fisherman's garden in suzhou was simply stunning...probably one of the best we saw...in gardens the goal was to use all four elements of the earth for perfect feng shui...water, air, rock and light...this one did that quite well i thought :)

this was one of the cool side garden terraces in this fisherman's garden...i guess the main fisherman who owned this used to sit out here and read....

while in suzhou, we went on a sanpan...and here is a great example of chingrish...a funny combination of english and chinese....these signs were all over the place...this one was extremely memorable...can you figure out what it says???

now we are in beijing...a crazy city that is obsessed with getting ready for the olympics..i was there for one day by myself where i went to tianan park...and this is part of that park...beautiful flowers and amazing temple style buildings...unfortunately it was closing when i made it there so i couldn't go in...but i liked this shot anyway :)

here's the main olympic countdown clock...they are starting the olympics next summer on the 8th of august, the 8th month, in 2008, at 8:08 pm....can you tell that eight is an important number...just amazing...you can find these clocks in a few places in the city...but this one is right across from tiannamen square and is the official one...

this is mao's masoleum...which was under construction...and put lenin's masoleum in red square moscow, to shame with size...they are making it visitable for the olympics...like many things in beijing...its actually quite sad, as they are knocking down all of the historical hutongs and replacing them with high rises and hotels for all of the visitors expected....

here i am with the current picture of mao at the front of the forbidden city...they put a new picture up each year of the chairman...we were told in this one he was made to look 20 years younger than the last one and the pink was added to give him a softer look....hmmmmm

welcome to the forbidden city...which is simply beautiful...and HUGE!!!!!! the colors are amazing and much of it is under construction for the olympics...of course...but still its just mind blowing to observe and walk through...while we were there the starbucks within the walls of the city was asked to close...people felt it wasn't appropriate...i was shocked there was even one inside of the walls to begin with....but in beijing alone there are over 40 starbucks...its just insane...

this was the gate that women were not allowed to pass through to get back into the city of beijing...it could only be used by men...nice to see that has changed :)

outside of beijing is where the great wall is located that you most frequently see in pictures and where most tourists go to see it...we were really lucky and went to two sections of the wall...the "wild" wall, that has been left the way it has become...and that is what you see in the picture above and below...it is falling apart and really steep....

no fears though...i made it...it was definitely a hike...but completely worth it and the "wild" wall blew away the "tourist" section where it has been made smooth and is really crowded...if you go, see if you can get to this part of the wall...as it feels more authentic....it was waaaaaaaay cool!!!

here i am on the "tourist" part of the wall...it took forever to take this picture with as few people as possible...it was way crowded the day we were there...and i am really happy we went to the other section first so we could truly appreciate what we had been to....so much better than this, but you have to do this one too...just to say you have :)

one of the really cool visits we did was to a family who lived in a hutong and they showed us how to make dumplings, as those are a specialty of shanghai...here i am with my finished dumpling...but i couldn't eat most of them, as they are usually filled with meat...the chinese don't really understand vegetarianism...they consider it to be only for poor people not to eat meat...it was an interesting experience....

in beijing we also went to the dragon lady's summer palace...she lived here by herself...well, with lots of servants...but her emperor husband never came here...and it was swanky!!! she had a marble boat as you can see above...you can't ride in it today, but i guess she did when she lived here...i was suprised it wouldn't sink...thank goodness for water displacement :)

i love this picture from the summer palace...as it is a crane statue, with a real dragon fly on the end of its beak...it was a perfect shot...dragonflies were everywhere in china where there was water...it was really neat to see so many of them....

this is a ceiling of a covered walkway along the shore of a lake at the summer palace...it was the only place of the palace where we could find a breeze...i guess she walked along this walkway when she needed a breeze too...beautiful artwork was found throughout this palace...but i loved the ceiling of the walkway the most

one of the other cool places we stopped in beijing was a kung-fu school...these kids, both boys and girls, went to this type of school so they could go into martial arts and film...they all wanted to be the next jackie chan or jet li...they put on a show for us and then took pictures...it was neat to meet them and talk to them about what they wanted to do....

one of my last stops in beijing was the lama temple...a working buddhist temple in china...that caters to chinese, tibetans, mongolians and indians...its the only one in the city...and it was beautiful...the buddhas in the temple were stunning and the temple itself was also quite amazing...

i figured i would end with a picture of me at the cloisonne factory, they gave us these bowls to practice the craft...it was interesting and used wet sand and metal to create the masterpieces...it was fun, but i didn't win for the most beautiful...oh well...guess its not for me....

okay...that's the start of china for me....this was only a third of the trip...it was amazing and i saw and did so many amazing things...i should get more pictures on here soon from the other two parts and then will post tibet as well...hope all is well and happy thanksgiving to those who celebrate...