Hangzhou
Going on my lab mate, Cheng's advice, I visited Hangzhou. It was beautiful because of the gardens and nice architecture around Xie Hu, the West Lake.
From Beijing, I took an over night train here. It took 13 hours and cost $70 for a soft sleeper. It was definitely the way to go. Although I could also have made the trip for $8 if I had a hard seat the whole way. That would have been excruciating and I almost had to do it because of complications buying a ticket. Luckily I found a Chinese translator to help me and I managed to get the train ticket I wanted.
For those of you who know, my Spanish is terrible, but good enough to help another French couple (who only spoke French and Spanish) buy their train ticket with the help of the Chinese translator.
These two men were playing chess. From what i saw, people played lots of games in public. Card games were the most common.
A guy from Hong Kong who spoke some English wanted to chat for awhile and he snapped this one overlooking the West Lake, Xie Hu. I did pick up a lot more of Chinese in three weeks than i have of any other language because of necessity. It is very VERY difficult to pronounce, but I found the Chinese people patient and very friendly and really enjoyed when i could say, Wo Shi Cong Meiguo Lade, or Wo Tingdedong. He and Hu and Wo mau mau :)
I sat here for 20 minutes. I like to flash back to that 20 minutes while i am sitting in Atlanta traffic.
This road is cool and crosses the lake. I include this pic because on the left, there is a white girl sitting and reading (a lot of foreign students around because of Zheizhang University) and the group is assembled to take individual photos with her. She was the marvel in all of this beautiful scenery, which is pretty common. Try being the hairiest white guy in China...that attracted some oos and ahhs as well.
These Sequoia trees were brought to the Hangzhou Botanical Gardens in the '60s by President Richard Nixon. I thought that was pretty special and although not like the GREAT SEQUOIAS (California), they are evidence of a major change in our two nations policies.
Hangzhou Botanical Gardens
I needed a real beer and found a really fun group to hang out with for the night. Chinese beer is good, but it could be great if they took out the formaldehyde. By the time I finished half of a beer I already had a headache. So with these Australians and Brits and the formaldehyde, I had a great night and a rough morning. Cheers to Alibabas!!
This is at the Red Carp Pond park in Hangzhou.
I am a big fan of Sepia and Black and White photos...so YES, these are intentional.
This is one of my favorites:)
From Hangzhou, I took buses to Huang Shan. The ride was bumpy and I could write an entire page on that alone.
My favorite part of traveling is getting into the countryside. So it is for this reason that Huang Shan and Jiuhan Shan had such a big impact on me. These next two pages show some of the best scenery that i have ever seen. The challenge (and beauty) of it was increased by not having any help with the language and having only 6 pages of translations from the Lonely Planet.