Everyone Speaks to Me in Russian!

Sunday, May 30, 2010--Beijing towards Inner Mongolia   Wes' flight to Chicago where he will visit his mother was not until 16:00, so he got to sleep in this morning.  My train, however, left Beijing North Train Station at 9:04, so I had to set the alarm and get up early.  I tried to get onto the computer, but the connection was just too slow that early in the morning.  My guess is that the Chinese guests who get up early get on their computers first thing each day.   The metro trains were running more slowly than on other days.  It took me about 40 minutes to get to the train station, but that still was 1 1/2 hours before the departure time.  Now that Wes is not along, I have to worry about everything myself.  I almost took the metro in the wrong direction when I switched trains this morning.  I caught it and got off the train and rushed to the other one on the opposite side of the platform just in time.  Of course, it would not have been a major problem.  I could have gone to the next station and transferred directions there using up only maybe 10 more minutes.  But now I must anticipate everything and double-check myself rather than relying on Wes to help out.  Some of my present worries:  I have a 29-30 hour train ride ahead of me.  Will my compartment companions be nice?  Will they smell okay?  Will I have to deal with any of them snoring?  Will there be room for me to store my luggage out of the way?   When the train arrived, I could not find the numbers to indicate which exactly was my place.  With the number "2" on my ticket, I knew I should be in an end compartment.  A man at the first compartment motioned for me to go to the other end.  When I got there, someone looked at my ticket and indicated the middle bunk on the inside wall.  My mind wondered, "What could be their numbering system?"  Later, I learned that my whole compartment had only 1 and 2 followed by a Chinese symbol to indicate 1 lower, 1 middle, 1 upper, 2 lower, etc.  Then it made sense.  Furthermore, the train arrived looking dirty.  It had already been traveling overnight.  The bedding was messed up by whomever had been in my place, and apparently there were no plans to replace it with fresh linens. Fortunately, I got my bags stored on the overhead rack and was able to lock them in place with my bicycle chain I carry so that I could sleep during the night without worrying about them being stolen.    There was a strange situation related to seating.  Anytime I have ever taking a sleeper car, the bottom "beds" have served as seats for all 6 passengers during the day.  That wasn't the case here.  The two men who had the bottom beds were spralled out on them.  Everyone with a middle or upper bed was either in his bed at 9:00 in the morning or sitting on a small seat in the aisle.  I checked, and all compartments were that way.  It really made traveling uncomfortable, since it wasn't possible for everyone to sit up.    Instand noodles are the big hit for meals on the train.  Everyone seemed to be carrying them.  Each train car has a huge boiler filled with steaming water.  There was constant traffic past me as people went to the boiler to add hot water over their boxes of noodles.  One of my 5 compartment companions did something that looked like a good idea.  He opened his noodles, added hot water, than peeled two boiled eggs and placed them inside the box.  By the time he was ready to eat his soup, he had two hot boiled eggs to eat along with what comes in the packaging.   A young woman in the compartment spoke some English.  She started talking to me.  Then everyone in my compartment had questions about me.  They were all nice people, thank goodness, and they seemed fascinated that an American was traveling alone on such a long trip to such a remote area.   For dinner, I bought a prepared meal off the cart.  It had rice, boiled egg, a green vegie, tofu in a dark sauce, and fried fish (with lots of bones).  The older man who had put the boiled eggs in his soup gave me something that looked like a dried fig and told me to eat it with my meal.  He was having one, too.  It wasn't a fig unless figs get VERY hard and chewy when they are dried.  Also, it was quite salty.  But that was good since most of the meal needed something to flavor it.  I knawed off a bite every once in a while to please the old man and to add to the taste of my meal.   After eating, some young people started showing an interest in me.  There were 28 of them traveling together.  They had been to a two-month class in the south and were returing to Hailaer where they work for a large government-owned power plant.  One young woman spoke Engish quite well, and it was obvious that one of the young men could understand everything I said.  About 12 of us visited for two hours.  It was fun to meet them and learn about their jobs and their plans.  And they had plenty of questions for me about everything.  It was one of those warm, wonderful encounters that tend to only happen when one travels alone in a foreign country--a great experience!   Spending Update:  During the 23 days that Wes and I traveled together, my expenses were $622.59 for an average of $27.07 per day.  Now that I will be paying hotels completely on my own, I expect that average to jump about $15-20 more per day for the rest of the time I am in China.   Monday, May 31, 2010--On the Train and in Manzhouli   The bed on the train was both hard and narrow.  Fortunately, they cut off the air conditioning system in the evening which allowed me to use my comforter to soften the bed some.  Still, I had a bit of a restless night.  I had to sleep with earplugs due to the noise of the train, especially a loud vibrating sound it made.    I awoke around 7:30 and began reading.  I finished reading my current novel--A Woman in Jerusalem by A. B. Yeshoshua.  It is sometimes quite funny.  I gave it 3 stars out of 4.   As the day progressed, I visited with all the people from the previous evening but in smaller groups.  I also visited with a new young woman, a banker, who had gotten on the train during the night.  Two different people gave me phone numbers for my next two destinations in case I had any kind of problem.  And several of them made suggestions about things to do and places to stay.    We arrived in Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia at 14:30.  It had taken 29 1/2 hours to get here.  My guidebook has only two pages on the city and no map.  Fortunately, I had gotten onto Google a few days ago and drawn my own map from it.  I had no problem finding my way from the train station to town.  I saw a hotel just as I was on the edge of the center of town and went in to check on a room.  The better hotels here charge rather high rates because this is the tourist season which is rather short due to the lack of a long summer here.  This hotel was obviously a step down from the 3-4 star places where Wes and I had been staying.  But I would give it two stars.  Furthermore, a woman was actually on her knees cleaning the carpeting which looked clean already!  The room was bright and clean with a TV and a very clean bathroom.  The best part is that the rate is only $15 per night.  The worst part is that I had to carry my suitcase up 96 steps to get to my floor!   I am just next to the Russian border and near the border to Mongolia.  All three countries come together just a few kilometers outside of Manzhouli.  That creates an interesting situation.  The countryside as we approached the city was grasslands like in Mongolia with sheep farmers and occasional yurts (Mongolian tents) to be be seen.  In town, however, the architecture is greatly influenced by Russia, and all signs are in Chinese and in Cyrillic letters.  Everyone who sees me just assumes that I am a Russian and speaks to me in the Russian language.  And I have seen plenty of Russians on the street myself.  They come here for cheap shopping compared to prices in their country.    I've only been in town for a couple of hours.  I have taken some photos of some of the old Russian-style wooden buildings and of some of the new architecture influenced by Russian styles.  I still need to explore the place, however.  I am hoping I might be able to order some Russian food to eat tonight.  I'm now sure, though, since no one hear seems to speak English.  Maybe I will be lucky and a Russian who is in a restaurant will speak English and be able to help me.

Last Days in Beijing

Friday, May 28, 2010--Beijing   We took the metro around town today. The weather looked quite good. Our first stop was the Olympic grounds from 2008. Just as we arrived, however, thunder began. We had to sit under an awning for some time while the rain came down and finally stopped. Then the sun came out and we were able to see the Bird's Nest Stadium and the Water Cube. I had seen both of them from a distance when I had been here two years ago just before the Olympics. But this time, we were up close. Unfortunately, the moist and polluted skies made it difficult to get good photos. I have read that the stadium is cracking and falling apart. What we could see is that it is incredibly dirty from air pollution. The Cube is closed for remodeling. It will retain its swimming lanes, I think, but above there where the seating areas were, they are putting a shopping mall and large meeting/dining rooms.   With the sun out, we headed to our second stop--the Summer Palace. The sun had been out for some time, but thunderstorms began again, unfortunately, right after we arrived. We stayed and saw what we could. I had been to the Summer Palace two years ago, but I saw something this time that I didn't realize before. It is a recreation of Hangzhou in Beijing. Apparently the Emperor wanted his own West Lake with its island, its pagoda on a mountain in the distance, its causeway, etc. We spent 2 ½ hours there.   Our final stop was unsuccessful. We had looked up the address of the Sam's Club here in Beijing and had mapped it on Google. We went there, but there was no Sam's Club at that location or nearby. We don't know if the store has closed or if Google maps was just completely wrong.   Saturday, May 28, 2010--Beijing   This is the last day for Wes and me to be together. I take a 30-hour bus trip to Inner Mongolia starting tomorrow morning, and he flies out to Chicago tomorrow afternoon. The sun was out, so we headed to the Temple of Heaven Park. It was full of people--bands playing, people dancing, people singing, women making swirls with streamers on sticks, people playing cards, etc.   We toured the Temple of Heaven which is a symbol for Beijing. It's a beautiful round building with 3 floors built with no concrete and no nails. Then we toured other buildings on the park grounds and flower gardens. After that, we just sat and listened the nice music being played. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at Beijing North Train Station so I could see how to get there tomorrow. I also bought a train ticket I will need for next week.   To celebrate the end of our travels together, we got a Dairy Queen Blizzard this afternoon. We have been dieting, so it was nice to have a treat. Then we walked and explored the shopping street near our hotel.   Notes: The computer cursor is skipping all over the screen. I hope this posting is accurate. I will be posting from cyber cafes now for the rest of my trip, so postings may not be as regular as they have been so far.

Off to Beijing

Tuesday, May 25, 2010--Qufu to Beijing   Our bus for Beijing wasn't departing until 11:20, so we had time to get up slowly and get to the station. We walked (1 hour) to get there and still got there about 50 minutes early. However, that was exercise we needed, since we would be sitting for 7+ hours on the bus.   What a disappointment when the bus arrived. Before this, our transportation has not been bad. This bus, however, was VERY bad. We had to sit in the next-to-the-last row. The seat backs were broken so that they were permanantly reclined. Also, the broken seats, along with the bad suspension, meant that every bump we hit sent our seats and seatbacks bucking. The bottom of the overhead storage compartment (with the a/c vents and lights) across the aisle from us was taped in place. A short distance down the highway when we hit a rough spot, the same portion of the overhead unit fell into the lap of a woman in the row in front of us and sent her into a fit of yelling at the driver and trying to figure out what to do with the wiring that was hanging down in front of her face! Fortunately, we were on expressways most of the way, so the trip was not as bouncy, meaning not as uncomfortable, as it could have been. At first, we had been worried that we both might be sick from all the bucking going on. That bus cannot be long for the road. We were so happy to arrive in Beijing without it falling apart.   The bus arrived at a station on the west side of town. Fortunately, I could figure out where it was on the map even though the station itself was not marked on it. We were near the Beijing West Train Station, so we went there to make one more effort to see if we could get a refund for the train tickets we had bought and could not use. The train still had not departed for the trip to Beijing, so we thought it might be worth the effort to try. However, they said the refund could be obtained only from the departure station. Therefore, we gave up for good and saved the tickets as souvenirs.   We are staying at the Oriental Peace Hotel in the Wangfujing area of Beijing. It's the same hotel where I stayed two years ago when I was here. From the West Train Station, it was easy to walk to the metro line and take the subway straight to here. And I remembered exactly how to get to the hotel even though it is on a small alley and has no western letters showing its name. Then we had a pleasant surprise. Although we had reserved the room through a website we have been using, the desk gave us the room at a cheaper price.   It was 21:00 by the time we were settled in the room, and we were hungry. We just went to a small place across the alley to eat. They had some cold vegetables. We picked out two kinds--one that was green and a bit rubbery and another that was either strips of melon or cucumber that had been pickled. We also got a large bowl of egg drop soup which we flavored with a vinegar-flavored soy sauce and thoroughly enjoyed.   Wednesday, May 26, 2010--Beijing   With the sun shining brightly, we decided to spend the day going to the Forbidden City. We stopped near the hotel to have a quick snack breakfast of an egg pancake wrapped around bean sprouts and seasoned with a spicy sauce.   We walked to the Forbidden City, since it is only one metro stop away. There were huge crowds. But the place is so big that it still was not bad. After the first couple of courtyards that are a gauntlet due to people trying to sell goods or services, we got our tickets and were within the area where we could enjoy the architecture and exhibits. We spent a total of 6 hours touring it. I had been there two years ago and had seen the major buildings, but I had lost all my photos because of my camera later being stolen. We took photos and followed the crowds to each major building. We also explored many side areas including the Treasury which I had missed on my previous visit. It's a fascinating place with large courtyards and massive-size buildings. The roofs are ornate with tiles, carvings, and multiple layers. And, of course, the main entrance has the famous and large portait of Mao overhead.   When we left the Forbidden City, we were exhausted, but there were two other places I wanted to explore before heading back to the room. First, was Tiananman Square which is directly across the street from the Forbidden City. It's not a square that impresses me, but it is so famous that it needs to be seen. Since the demonstrations a few years ago, it is constantly monitored by the military. We even had to go through security to enter the square. Once inside, there is not much to it. There are no trees, no benches, etc. There are just people milling around in a huge paved area and occasionally just sitting down on the pavement. There is a new addition since I was here two years ago--a long electronic screen showing films of various scenes in China.   We headed further south from the square, past the large gates at the end of it into an urban renewal project which was still underconstruction when I was here before. Previously, it was a local area with homes and neighborhood shops and restaurants. My guidebook identified it as a wonderful area for finding small, inexpensive restaurants. But the government clearned out a wide swath through the neighborhood and built a totally new shopping district in old-style architecture. They took away the streetcar that used to be there, but left the tracks through the area. The closest thing I can compare it to now is La Cantera Mall in San Antonio which is an open air mall full of the typical international shops. Fortunately, however, just behind the western side of the mall street is still a street lined with local shops and restaurants. We walked back through it and found it far more interesting to see. And there are still many nice, small restaurants in that area.   Being so tired, we stopped at a supermarket on the way back to the hotel and bought some food to bring to the room. Then we stayed inside the rest of the night.   Thursday, May 27, 2010--Beijing   Knowing that the crowds can be almost impossible on the weekends, we decided to go visit the Great Wall of China today. We followed the easy route which is the one I had followed two years ago. We took the metro to a local bus stop and caught the 919 bus to the Badaling viewing site.   The weather was cloudy and as we left the hotel, there was an occasional feel of a sprinkle. We bought a very garlicy pastry at the metro entrance. Travel went well with every connection working fine. When we got to Badaling, we could still feel an occasional sprinkle, but there was no rain.   We took the route to the left when we climbed the wall. Most tourists go to the right, and that area is just too crowded. To the left is much less crowded because it is much more steep! For us, however, it was just good exercise. We climbed and climbed, stopping to catch our breath and to take photos. Even this route was more crowded that it was when I was here before. I had thought maybe the cloudy day with the threat of rain would keep the number of visitors down, but that didn't seem to be the case. As we hiked, we even passed an official delegation from India who were been escorted by soldiers, since this is the part of the wall where government leaders are traditionally taken. Wes and I joked that Hilliary and Timothy (Geithner?) were probably at the same spot earlier this week when they were here for negotiations.   We hiked as far as we were allowed to go. Then we turned around and returned. We passed a German man who was playing polkas on his accordion. It was so nice. We guessed that he may have a goal of trying to take his accordion and play it at many significant places in the world--the top of the Empire State Building, at the Grand Canyon, at the Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro, etc. Whatever his reasoning, it was a pleasure for all of us who were listening. On the way back down the wall, the rain began as a light drizzle. We walked a way on the other part of the wall, but the rain and the crowds made us decide it wasn't worth the effort. Instead, we toured the Wall Museum which had some interesting exhibits about its construction, the state of various parts after all these years, photos of famous visitors, etc.   There was a crowd waiting for the bus in the light rain when we got to the bus stop. When the bus came, there was no queue at all. It was all-for-oneself as people pushed and shoved. Wes got on ahead of me and got a seat. I had to start the trip standing. Then something happened to me for the first time in my life, I think. There were two young Indonesian men on the bus who had been on our bus going up there. One of them got out of his seat and insisted that I take it. I presume he did this because of thinking that I am elderly and should be given a seat. Of course, I probably went up the Wall as fast or faster than anyone else with no problems. But he insisted, so I took the seat. Fortunately, some people left the bus after about 15 minutes and he got a seat again.   Only one of the two Indonesians could speak English, but he and I visited for quite a while on the way back to town on the bus. He has been to Houston, because he used to work for a multi-national company dealing with biomass which has major offices in Houston. Now he and his friend both work for an Indonesian company that mines gold. I teased him about not wearing any gold jewelry and asked why the company didn't give gold rings as bonuses! He asked me about Turkey, because it is a place he wants to visit on a future vacation.   The outing took all day. Since it was still drizzling and already 16:30 when we got back to our neighborhood, we decided to explore the next-door Oriental Plaza Mall. We checked out the food courts to see what we might want to eat there, then we walked up and down the mall seeing what shops were inside. The only one we entered was the Sony shop. They had a 3-D TV set up, so we took a seat, put on the glasses, and watched a beautiful film of the sea with colorful fish. Soon, some Middle Easterners gathered behind us, and I figured they were likely to be possible buyers. Therefore, we left so they could check out the TV for themselves.   We are staying inside today. Wes is reading the guidebooks to see what he wants to do for the next two days which are his last ones here before returning home to Corpus Christi.

Leaving the Rain

Sunday, May 23, 2010--Nanjing to Qufu   It was still raining in Nanjing as we left for the bus station. Fortunately, we are traveling northward 7 hours today to an area where there should be sunshine.   It was a long bus trip, but we were in the front 2 seats giving us a good view of the route. We followed it on my map and could tell how we were progressing toward our destination of Qufu, the home of Confucius.   The bus dropped us off at the highway exit rather than bringing us into town. Others had also been life off at similar locations. According to the signs, it was 5 km (3 miles) into town. Since we had been sitting all day and the weather was good, we decided to walk. Of course, that caused lots of attention from people we passed on the way.   The Queli Hotel where we are staying is inside the old walled city of Qufu. The hotel is built in the old style. It is a 4-star hotel and is quite different from the style (low rise versas high rise) of the hotels where we have been staying and looks a lot like an old temple. One nice thing: the carpeting is clean! And the air conditioner seems to work better than the ones in other hotels where we have stayed.   The walled city of Qufu is a bit of a dissapointment to me. I hoped it would be filled with quaint buildings and would have limited traffic inside it. Unfortunately, neither is the case. The stores inside the walls look quite modern. And there is the same traffic inside the walls that there is everywhere else--traffic with no respect for pedestrians.   We wandered the streets for a while after dark, but we were tired and went to the room. Tomorrow will be our day of exploration.   Monday, May 24, 2010--Qufu   Last night, we realized we had a travel problem. Earlier, we had already decided that we needed to go straight to Beijing from here because the schedules would not give us time to see what we wanted to see at the stop we had planned. We canceled a hotel reservation two days ago. But last night, we realized we had made a mistake in buying a ticket to get us from here to Beijing.   Names in China are very similar. And it is very important to be able to try to show the names of towns in Chinese characters when planning travel. Unfortunately, the nearby town for the local train station is named Nanzhou and is not a large town meaning that it is not well known. Our guidebook did not have it spelled in Chinese characters for us to show when we bought our tickets to get from here to Beijing. While checking our tickets last night, we realized that we did not have tickets from Nanzhou to Beijing but from Nangzhou. They sound very similar. Unfortunately, Nangzhou is 7 hours south of here, whereas Berlin is 7 hours north of here. It is too much effort to go back there and use the tickets, so we spent this morning working on new plans.   Unfortunately, no one here in Qufu speaks much English. Most can only use a few phrases that match their jobs. No one in the hotel could understand our problem. We headed to the tourist office hoping for someone who spoke more English. One lady did, but it wasn't signifigantly more. I was only able to get her to understand that we wanted to know if we could get our money back for the wrong tickets by first showing her the exchange of 2 fives for 1 ten in the local currency and then trying to show an exchange of the tickets for money. She called the local station, and they told her we would have to go back to Nangzhou (the beginning station for the ticket) to get a refund. That's when we realized we just needed to accept the tickets as a loss.   From there, we went to the bus station to check on schedules to Beijing from here. We had decided to go by bus because the only train from here to Berlin leaves at 7:00 a.m. making it a horrible day of getting up extra early to get ready, check out of the hotel, and travel the 15-20 km (9-12 miles) to get to the train station in plenty of time before departure. Unfortunately, the bus station was not where it had been when my guidebook was written. It had moved to the edge of town, so we had to walk 4-5 km (2.5-3 miles) to get there. However, we were able to get tickets for a bus that wouldn't leave until 11:30 tomorrow morning.   After that, it was necessary to consider that our Beijing hotel reservation does not start until the 26th, yet our travel plans will now get us there on the 25th. I tried to go online to write the website to add another night. Unfortunately, there was no Internet connection, so we had to report the problem to the hotel front desk and hope that writing them later in the day would still work.   Our main reason for coming to Qufu was that it is the home of Confucius with a temple, an area of housing for his relatives, and a cemetery where he and his relatives are buried. With our travel planning out of the way, we went out to tour these sights.   The temple is large with different partitions which are passed via gates as one progresses through it. It includes many special tributes to Confucius by various former Chinese rulers. The Confucius Mansions is a huge compound where the descendents of Confusius lived and welcomed guests including emporers and kings. We could see into the houses to see how they were furnished. The cemetery is in a large wooded area and is the largest family cemetery in the world. We walked around it seeing some of the more elaborate tombs. Those often had statues of cats, rams, and horses in front of them. Finally, at the end of the cemetery tour we saw the tomb of Conufcius himself.   We were very tired after all the walking of the day. Probably we have walked more than on any other day of our travels so far.   I finished reading Shanghai Girls by Lisa Lee today. I was grreatly disappointed with the book. The first half was wonderful. But the second half rushed and had implausible aspects to it. I gave it 3 stars out of 4, an average of what I gave the first half (4 stars) and the second half (only 2 stars).

Return of the Rain

Friday, May 21, 2010--Nanjing   We were slow getting up.  The hotel doesn't include breakfast, and the room is quiet and comfortable.  Wes' only complaint is about the hardness of the beds.  All our hotels have had hard beds.   The sun was out, so we dressed in shorts and headed for the Musuem of the Nanjing Massacre.  It's on the edge of town where a gate used to exist--a gate where bones of persons who were killed in the massacre were found.  The museum is a huge complex that tells the story in detail about the loss of 300,000 lives and the rape of 20,000 women when the Japanese invaded in 1937.  We spent over two hours seeing the exhibits and reading about the atrocities and the later conviction of the leaders.    When we came out of the museum, it was raining.  We hadn't expected it at all and didn't even have our umbrellas with us.  We sat in a protected area for 30 minutes or so, but the rain just got harder.  Eventually, we decided to walk the two blocks to a major street that would have a bus stop.  We were completely soaked by the time we got there.  But a nice lady helped us find the best bus to get us near our hotel from there.   Because of the bad weather, we just stayed the rest of the day in the room and watched TV.  We have a movie channel that shows American films in English along with a Chinese channel that has news in English.  We watched both of those.   Saturday, May 22, 2010--Nanjing   We had hoped the rain would be gone today so we could go to the park to see some of the historical sights here and visit the botanical gardens.  Unfortunately, it was still raining and was cold.  When I was in China in May before, it was hot.  But this year we have had mostly cool days.    We left the room to go to some of the nearby malls to spend some time looking around and being among people.  About two hours later, we returned to the room.  The rain continued.  We watched more films on TV.    By late afternoon, it was dry outside.  We walked to Nanjing Normal University and explored the neighborhoods around it.  We got back to the hotel just as it began to sprinkle again.    We leave to go further north tomorrow, so we will probably escape the rain again.  We will be going to an old walled city called Qufu.

Escaping the Rain

Tuesday, May 18, 2010--Tunxi to Nanjing   It rained all night with thunder being added in the morning.  It was definitely a good idea to plan to head northward rather than go southward and try to climb Huangshan.   We needed to be at the train station early, so I went downstairs to check out while Wes did final things in the hotel room.  They called upstairs to have the maid check the room to see that we had not taken anything.  The maid walked in on Wes sitting on the toilet!  She returned to the hall and waited for him to exit the room.   We took a taxi to the train station since it was raining and our time was short.  I knew that taxis are reasonable here in China; I had taken them a couple of times on previous trips.  It cost only a little more than a dollar to pay for the taxi for a trip that had taken us 70 minutes to walk when we went to buy our tickets.   The train trip took 7 hours.  People around us were curious about us and eventually became friendly with us.  Some spoke a little English.  Almost everyone in China is a fan of the NBA and wants to talk about basketball.  When I tell them I am from San Antonio they usually know immediately that it is the home of the Spurs.  One of the young men who talked to us at first was very excited and could name all the teams in Texas.  His favorite is the Houston Rockets because of Yao Ming playing for them.   One young man eventually moved to our seat and talked to us for the rest of the trip.  He spoke English well.  His mother is a doctor and his father is a teacher, so they greatly emphasized getting a good education.  He is a marketing manager for a Chinese firm that sells only inside China, and he travels for weeks at a time.  He was making a stop tonight in his hometown to have a short dinner with friends, then he was departing for a 36-hour train trip to western China.  But he was happy with his work and expressed plans to establish his own business someday.    When we decided to come to Nanjing two days earlier than planned, we also decided to get a hotel in a different part of town for those days than the one where we already held a reservation.  The hotel we chose was northward and not too far from the train station.  We had no problem finding it.  It is more basic (only 3 stars) than most of the places where we have stayed.  The main difference is that the room is a bit smaller.  It will be fine for 2 nights.   After settling into the room, we went out looking for a restaurant and settled on a place in the neighborhood.  They had photos of dishes on the wall, so we studied it.  Wes picked out a dish that looked like slices of beef with peppers in a sauce.  I picked out one that looked like mushrooms in a similar sauce with peppers.  When the dishes arrived, they looked like the photos, but they were not what we expected.  The "beef" dish probably was beef, but it was beef liver slices.  The "mushrooms" proved not be be vegetables at all but to be pieces of pigtail in a sauce.  We ate up anyway, but we were a bit disappointed.  Wes was ready to return to having instant noodles in the room after that.   Wednesday, May 19, 2010--Nanjing   For the first time since arriving in China we had no breakfast this morning.  Breakfasts are fairly common with rooms in most places, but Nanjing is a city in which none of the hotels at our reservations site were offering breakfasts with their rates.  That's fine, however, for there are many places to grab small, quick bites from street vendors.  We eventually stopped at one and had two steamed buns each--one flavored with green onions and the other one filled with chopped vegetables and tofu.   We walked for 6 hours exploring the area.  We wandered through Xuanwu Park which is between our hotel and the train station.  We found a compound which apparently houses officials of the Communist Party.  We explored a market near there with nice fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, etc.  We found a street lined for blocks with computer stores and went inside one and visited with a salesman who was interested to know what Wes had paid for his Acer netbook in the U.S. (the equivalent of 2100 yuan versus the 2500 yuan price in the store).  We located the hotel where we will go tomorrow when we check out of the present one.  We rested in a beautiful pocket park and watched people.  Etc.   Unfortunately, the computer won't work in the hotel where we are.  I diagnosed the problem:  the wall outlet where the broadband cable connects was defective.  The cable would not go far enough into it to click into place and make the connection.  I reported it to the front desk, but when we returned in the afternoon, it was the same except that a different cable was there that also would not click into the outlet.   In the evening, we went back out to the bus station we had seen north of where we were staying.  We bought tickets for the trip to our next destination for May 23 when we will depart here.    Thursday, May 20, 2010--Nanjing   While we were getting ready this morning to depart from our hotel, a repairman came to the room to fix the computer connection.  Just as I had diagnosed, he needed to change the wall outlet.  He had it repaired and working as we wheeled our bags out of the room to checkout.   Our new hotel is straight downt he street from the old one.  We could have taken the metro, but we worried about it being awkward with our luggage.  Instead we just walked it.  The Zhongshan is a much nicer place than where we were staying before.  It has 4 stars.  But it still suffers from a problem that seems to be rather common in Chinese hotels--dirty carpeting.  I don't know if they vacuum or not, but they definitely never shampoo the carpeting in hotels in this country.    Today was hot.  We went exploring to the southern part of the city.  We saw the Presidential Palace, the Fuxi Temple (Confucian), the new modern Nanjing Library, and the Zhonghua Gate.  Nothing was very spectacular.  I had always heard that Nanjing is a nice city.  And it is a pretty city with beautifully manicured and tree-lined boulevards.  But the sights seem to be limited so far.   Because of the heat, we stopped both at Carrefours and at Wal-mart while we were out walking to buy cold diet colas to refresh us.  For lunch, we stopped at a street vendor to have a snack that we have learned to like.  It consists of a thin, crispy pancake (like an Indian dosa has) that is spread with a beaten egg and two sauces (including a spicy one), topped with sesame seeds and chopped onion and green vegetables, and wrapped with thin pieces of crispy pork skin placed inside.  It is delicious and an easy snack to eat out of the hands while walking.   While out, Wes commented about his nose getting a workout on this trip.  Like most of Asia, China has bad smells in the air often--either from the unusual flavorings of its foods, from the products used at the construction sites which are everywhere, or from the fact that the sewage system is not top-of-the-line.  I've learned just to accept these bad odors, but I do sometimes lose my appetite because of them.    My biggest problem here in Nanjing has been the particles in the air.  I keep getting them in my eyes.  They can really irritate and can be very difficult to get out of the eye.

Rain and Sickness

Sunday, May 16, 2010--Side Trip to Xidi   We were lucky with the weather this morning.  We awoke to sunshine.  The rain has held off for a while.  All the forecasts say its coming, however, giving 80-100% chances!  That means we won't be able to go to Huangshan Mountain in the next couple of days as we had planned.   Breakfast at the hotel was more authentic than previous ones.  Our boiled eggs had been boiled in 5-Spice and had been cracked so the seasoning could get into the eggs after they were boiled.  We were offered menu choices that were all Chinese.  Mine was steamed pork with dark, chopped vegetables.  Wes' was sticky rice with chicken.  They came from the kitchen in small steamer boxes.  Mine had more flavor.  Wes' was a bit bland.    With the sun still shining, we headed for the bus station and caught a bus to take us to Xidi, a World Heritage Site village which is where part of the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was made.  We had to go first to a bigger town where we changed buses.  By the time we got to the first bus station, Wes was feeling sick.  He rushed to the toilet taking a packet of tissues with him (since paper is not provided in public toilets here).  Only squat toilets were available as expected.  He had both diarrhea and vomiting and looked quite pale.  There are a couple of possible causes.  It was exactly 3 hours after we had breakfast, so something he ate was probably a factor in the diarrhea.  But we had been traveling behind a truck producing massive amounts of smoke and fumes and our bus had been twisting and winding on the roadway.  Therefore, motion sickness and or the fumes could have also been a factor.  Anyway, he came out of the toilet before our mini-bus left, so we headed on to Xidi.   We had an interesting experience taking the mini-bus.  As usual, several people read the Chinese letters in my guidebook for Xidi and made sure we were getting the right bus.  After we were on it, I decided I should check with passengers to know the "local" price to assure we were not charged too much.  I turned to a lady beside me.  She was quite elderly, and when I showed her the Chinese letters, she made a face and motioned, "No, no," with her hand.  The lady behind me who was also elderly, did the same.  Apparently neither of them could read.  However, when I pulled out my money and pointed to myself, they quickly understood.  The first lady held up 2 fingers indicating 2 yuan.  Then the second lady tapped me on the shoulder and pointed first to Wes and then to me and held up 4 fingers indicating that it would be 4 yuan for both of us.    Xidi is set in the mountains with pine trees and tall bamboo all around.  The town itself consists of white structures with dark roof tiles.  It was a wealthy town at one time, so many of the homes are large with multiple rooms.  They all feature fancy doorways and large rooms designed with roof openings to let in light and air.  We toured a few of the old homes, but mostly we just wandered the narrow, winding streets.  The buildings in the first few blocks were filled with shops whose owners called to us as we passed.  But we got beyond that where we could walk in peace and could see glimpses of local life.  There were many students making paintings of the village in various forms--water colors, oils, etc.  We often communicated briefly with them and even had our photos taken with the teacher and a few of the students.  We left the village and walked up the side of a hill to a pagoda to get an overview of the village.  A young man and two young women joined us.  The young man talked to us and took photos with us.    We left Xidi hoping to go to another World Heritage Site village, but we discovered the next bus to there would be too late (14:00) for us to guarantee that we would get back to the hotel in Tunxi (since the last bus to Tunxi was scheduled to leave at 17:00).  We just waited until 13:30 and took a direct bus back to Tunxi.  That was a good plan, because the rain started just about an hour later.   Wes remained well for the rest of the day.  We stopped to buy instant noodles and stayed inside the room rather than go out in the rain.  We went through the guidebooks searching for alternative places to visit if the rain developed as expected.    Monday, May 17, 2010--Tunxi   As expected, the rain came down hard during the night and into the morning.  It confirmed to us that we needed to make alternative plans for the next few days.  There would be no pleasure in climbing a mountain in the rain, and the steepness of the trails would make it dangerous.  However, Huangshan Mountain would have been a wonderful one to experience.   We considered going to Yangzhou just north of Nanjing for a couple of days.  But when we checked train times, it was not going to work out well.  The only direct train to there would leave here at 3:45 in the morning.  No trains worked for connecting to there through Nanjing without an overnight stay.  Therefore, we decided just to go to Nanjing and stay 5 nights/4 days rather than the 3 nights/2 days we had in our original plan.  Fortunately, Nanjing is just north of the line for the heavy rain, so we should be fine other than the fact that more rain is expected near the weekend.   After making those decisions, we started working on a booking for a hotel in Nanjing for the first 2 nights.  We thought it would be interesting to stay in two places rather than just try to extend our reservation where we will be the last 3 nights.  Unfortunately, our first choice for a hotel did not work; it was already fully booked for the two days.  We have now sent a request for another hotel.  We'll keep trying until we find one.    The rain comes and goes.  We were able to walk for a while this morning in sunshine before it returned again.  We are now waiting for another clearing or light spell so that we can go to the train station and try to buy tickets for one of the trains tomorrow morning for Nanjing.  Will update the blog again later with information about how it all works out.

Heading to Huangshan

Friday, May 14, 2010--Hangzhou   We've run into problems with the weather. There have been floods in southern China. Well rain is now in the area where we are. Yesterday, there was light rain much of the day. And the forecast is for rain for the next several days. Since we are supposed to leave tomorrow for Huang Shan where we have planned to climb the mountain, we pulled out the guidebooks and looked for alternative plans. However, nothing seemed obvious. Therefore, we are just going to continue to that area and see what develops. We got online and made a hotel reservation in Tunxi for the first nights in that area. There are old towns to visit that will be okay to see even if it is raining. As the days pass, we will decide whether to continue to the mountain or not.   After leaving the hotel, we spent part of the day investigating how to get to Tunxi tomorrow. There is no train to there, so we had to figure out how to get to the Western Bus Station to catch a bus. We tried to go to a tourist office, but it wasn't a REAL tourist information place; it was a travel bureau wanting to sell package tours. So we walked to the train station where we knew there was a helpful tourist desk. The woman there told us that we should take Bus 49 from the train station. But that location is a long walk from our hotel and is in the opposite direction from where we need to head. Therefore, we walked following the 49 route until we found a stop near our hotel. It's only about 3 blocks away instead of 10-12 blocks to the train station.   By the time we finished all of that, we were surprised to note that it had remained cloudy without any rain starting. We decided to spend the rest of the day further exploring the lake area. We walked completely around the lake following the shore and a couple of causeways. The route is lined with nice shade trees, has wonderful views of the city and the mountains, has beautiful spots with colorful flower gardens, and has nice statues along it. By the time we returned to the room and checked the distance on the map, we had walked 15 km (9 miles). We were so tired that we ate a freshly-made pancake made at a sidewalk stall and then just stayed inside and had instant noodles again for dinner.     Sat., May 15, 2010--Hangzhou to Tunxi   We were pleasantly surprised to see that it was not raining yet this morning. The skies were cloudy, but otherwise it was fine. After having breakfast earlier than usual, we checked out of the hotel (having to wait first for the usual problem of a Chinese person pushing ahead of us). We headed for the nearby bus stop where a 49 bus immediately arrived. Fortunately, there was room for us and our luggage without inconveniencing others. We arrived at the bus station 45 minutes later and were able to buy a ticket for a bus to Tunxi leaving 55 minutes later. Because it was dry and rather warm, we folded up our coats and put them away in our luggage.   The bus trip was a pleasant surprise in two ways. The guidebook had said it was a 6-hour trip from Hangzhou to Tunxi, but it proved to be only a 3-hour trip. And second, not only did the rain not come, but the sun even came partially out among the clouds.   Coming into Tunxi, I saw the International Hotel which we had seen while researching hotels yesterday. That gave me some bearings for knowing where we were. I'm glad, because the bus did not go to the station that was marked on our map. We followed the signs to turn right as we left the station, and we stopped at a hotel to ask further directions. Then we saw a sign for the International Hotel. That's when it became clear where we were and how we needed to go to get to our hotel. Then it became a nice stroll along the river the rest of the way without worries about where we were.   We are staying at the Old Street Hotel. Tunxi has an old shopping street that is a major tourist draw. Our hotel is at one of the entrances to this street and is built in the old style. The facilities seem similar to all the other hotels where we have stayed so far. All are 3- or 3 1/2-star places. But this time there are wooden floors. That relieves us of the strange problem of dirty carpeting we have had elsewhere. I don't know if vacuum cleaners are ever used here in China. The floors don't look like it. Apparently the carpets are never shampooed. It is strange for a hotel room to be nice while having dirty carpeting.   We went walking to the train station to get information about going to Nanjing from here and to a special office for getting permits to go to the World Heritage Site ancient villages in the area. A young agricultural student accompanied us part of the way to the train station. When we got to the PSB to get a permit, however, it was closed. Fortunately, a policeman was parked outside and spoke English. He took us inside the building and called a man outside. The man looked at our passports and told us that we did not have to have a special permit due to having our passports with our visas in them. That was important for us, because we wanted to go tomorrow and were afraid to go without the permit that the guidebook had said would be required.   After thanking the men who helped us, we explored the Old Town on our way back to the hotel. It is a nice one and a large one. It is similar to the one in Hangzhou, but the street seems more authentic. It is paved with huge, old stones rather than modernized with new pavers. And the buildings have nice shops in them while looking definitely old.   The clouds have returned, but there still is no rain. We plan to take each day as it comes and see what we can do. We would like to climb the mountain on Tuesday if possible. In the meantime, we will go out for dinner tonight and will try to go visit the nearby ancient cities tomorrow. The mountains and the ancient cities should be beautiful. This is the area where the popular film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed.

Side Trip to Wuzhen

Wed., May 12, 2010--Hangzhou (Continued)   Wes napped while I updated the blog in the late afternoon. Then we returned to the lakeside. We wandered for about 1 1/2 hours watching people and enjoying the view. Then we watched a musical fountains show at 20:00. I was standing behind a young boy who looked Indian. I asked if he was from India, and he was. He said he is from Madurai in Tamil Nadu, and I told him I had been there. He's in the 8th Standard in school and math is his favorite subject. He was a nice kid, and his parents seemed happy that I was visiting with him. His mother asked what I thought of Obama and responded positively when I said that I liked him. So many people from other countries look more positively on America because of the election of Obama.   We ate street food for dinner. We got pancakes that were filled with vegetables and seasoned with chile sauce and another dark brown sauce. They were a bit plain, but they were fine.     Thurs., May 13, 2010--Hangzhou and Wuzhen   We almost missed breakfast this morning. We got there at 8:30, and at 9:00 they were closing down the buffet. We'll have to be earlier in the future.   We decided to go to Wuzhen, an old canal town outside of Hangzhou today. It became more of an effort and more expensive than we had expected. First, the bus to go there leaves from the East Bus Station which is FAR from downtown. We had to try to find a bus to there. The first young man who tried to help us obviously wasn't sure where it was. A young couple came up, and they were headed to Wuzhen also. So they figured out what bus to take and we were off. Unfortunately, however, that bus route had been changed and the driver told them that we would have to change to another bus at a point in the route. We did that. But by the time we got to the East Bus Station, we had been traveling 2 hours!! Then we had a 55 minute wait for the bus to Wuzhen. The bus to Wuzhen took 2 hours and 15 minutes to get there. We didn't arrive in the old town until about 5 hours after we had left!   The Old Town was much smaller than I had hoped. The admission charge was $14 each, so we felt it was a bit overpriced for what there was to see and do. One of the most special things to do there is to see a puppet show, and it wasn't being performed due to the show being moved to the World Expo in Shanghai for the next 6 months. We did see several exhibits and museums. Among the more interesting were a winery using very old techniques and equipment and a bed museum featuring various large framed beds. We were lucky enough to get back from Wuzhen in about 2 1/2 hours. We were tired and it was raining. Therefore, we just bought some instant noodles and prepared them in our room for dinner.

Expo 2010 and Hangzhou

First, let me begin by stating that I cannot access my blog from China.  The government here apparently has a block on it.  That may be due to the fact that Blogger is owned by Google, and I am sure you have read about the conflict between that company and this country.  It may also be due to the fact that they search for entries about China and have found that I am not always positive in what I say.  Either way, I just have to trust that sending my entries by e-mail will get them posted.  This is my second entry to send this way on this trip.   Monday, May 10, 2010--Shanghai   Wes and I returned to McDonalds early in the morning to try again to use the wi-fi from there.   I had saved my entry on a thumbnail drive so that I could copy it into his account, since the guest account on his computer did not allow any Internet connection.  However, we found we could not get the free wi-fi at McDonalds because it is limited to those persons who can provide local ID information--a part of the Chinese government's way of controlling what people see and do on the Internet.  I believe I wrote a reference to this in my e-mailed post that has already been published (I hope).   After that, we took the computer back to the hotel and headed for the World Expo 2010.  I am not a big fan of World's Fairs.  I think they were probably great back in the 1800s and maybe in the early 1900s before radio/TV/Internet when people lived their lives not knowing much about the rest of the world.  They could be amazed by the sights they saw from other countries.  Today, however, it is difficult to give people anything new at a World's Fair.  Most in the past 80 years have been financial failures for this reason.  The one here in China only has a chance to succeed, I think, due to the fact that the country has a billion people who have been kept in the dark to a great extent about the rest of the world.  They may still find it fascinating to learn about things that had been kept a secret from them.  In that respect, other countries that might be able to have a successful World's Fair would be North Korea and, to a certain extent, Iran.   We went to a "back" gate via the metro to enter and were lucky.  The lines were short and we had no problem entering quickly.  That gate put us into the area for exhibits from the Pacific and from the Americas.  Because I had lived in the Philippines and their exhibit was the first we saw, we entered it.  It was a complete dud.  There was nothing of interest to see or learn.  Mostlty, they were selling products to visitors.    Next, we went to the exhibit for Australia.  It was a bit better.  Still, it did not excite us much.  We kept wishing we had read a review or two which would guide us to some of the better exhibits.    During the day, we went to about 20 exhibits.  Fortunately, the U.S. was one of the better ones due to a film they showed that was not political and fit the theme of the fair well (Better Cities Better Neighborhoods, or something like that).  The film showed a small girl looking out on a corner lot in her urban neighborhood that was trashed.  She imagined a nice flower garden there.  She took a plant and planted it as neighbors watched.  The net day, someone had stolen it.  She repeated it another day as the skeptical neighbors watched again.  It was stolen again.  But on the 3rd day, a neighbor gave her another plant to put in the garden.  Then, one after another, all the neighbors came to help.  When it was finished, it was beautiful, but that night a major storm came.  (Loud thunder and sprinkling water in the theater surprised those in attendance and even caused some of the women to briefly open their umbrellas!)  The garden was damaged, but the community came together and make it fresh again.  The film ended showing new gardens on rooftops and in small areas spreading from that spot across the city as a result of the influence of the first park on the people.  Everyone had a positive attitude when the film ended I think.  And that was aided by a previous film they had seen in which both Hillary Clinton and President Obama addressed the audience in non-political ways.    Other pavilions we liked were:  Mexico with paintings by famous artists, artifacts from previous cultures, and demonstrations of the making of Mexican products (such as a man making a sombrero).  Mongolia with an exhibit of the skeletonbs of two dinosaurs to died as a result of fighting each other in the Gobi desert.  Venezuela with a permanant troup of entertainers in costume to draw people into their exhibits which included a courtyard with lots of hanging hammocks (representing the styles of various parts of the country) which guests could use.  Seimens Corporation showing products in production that will change our lives--product design and development by people in various places who come together via the Internet, families conferencing regularly via the Internet no matter where each member lives, 3-D TV, etc.  Their show ended with a song about bringing us together from all over the world which involved singing avatars with OUR heads which had been photographed as we entered the pavilion.    Russia had a strange exhibit which was a fantasy flower garden land.  We weren't sure how it fit the theme and what it was supposed to teach us.  The Danish exhibit had the Little Mermaid, but the building was so brightly white that I fear they will have bad publicity about people falling from the glare and the steps that are of different depths.  We also visited pavilions of Canada, Brazil, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, the Pacific Islands, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, etc.  There were far too many to try to see them all.  And the lines at some of the more popular ones--Switzerland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, etc., were just too long to consider trying to visit them with our limit of one day.    We stayed into the evening so that we could see the pavilions at night.  Many are beautifully lighted.  In the daytime, Latvia probably had the prettiest.  At night, Taiwan had the prettiest, I think, although there were many more that were special.   By 20:00, we had been there for about 10 hours and were exhausted.  We watched the Disney-like parade featureing Puxi, the mascot of the fair, then we exited and made our way back to our hotel.   Tuesday, May 11, 2010--Shanghai to Hangzhou   As we packed, Wes found a surprise.  There was a computer cable in the desk drawer.  The people at the desk downstairs had responded that there was no wi-fi when we asked.  But they had not told us there was free cable access to the Internet within our room.  We had gone days trying to find a place to be on the computer, and we could have been doing it in our room each day!  We logged on and I sent the first e-mail posting to the blog.  I'm hoping it got posted, since I do not know for sure yet.   Today, we needed to get to Hangzhou, a city not too far from Shanghai.  The guidebook had recommended going to a bus station only 3 stops from where we were staying and said that there were buses every 30 minutes all day to there.  We went to the station only to find there would be NO buses.  Of course, this knowledge created a problem due to language; no one could tell us where else to go!    We returned to the bus station, and there was a young, professionally dressed lady standing outside.  I decided to ask if she spoke English.  She did!!  She insisted that the best way for us to get to Hangzhou was to go to the South Train Station and go by train.  She took us into the station and helped us buy the tickets for the trip to there.   We arrived with no problems at the South Train Station.  We were lucky; the line moved fast, and we had two tickets within 10 minutes. Wes wanted to use the toilet.  When he came back, he reported that they had only squat toilets and no paper, so he decided to wait until we were in our hotel in Hangzhou!   When we tried to enter the large, central waiting area at that point, we were turned back.  We didn't know why.  We walked around to find the Information counter, and no one was there.  A policeman, however, looked at our tickets and pointed to a door.  We had first class tickets and had to wait in a special waiting room.  When time came to board the train, they announced it and then escorted us down to the train platform to board the cars before the other people from the regular waiting room were allowed to enter.     It was a clean, fast train.  (But nearby, we could see the columns for the new high-speed train they are building to go even faster between the two cities.)  It took us 1 hour, 20 minutes to get to Hangzhou non-stop.  It was Wes' first time to see the countryside here in China.  He was most amazed, I think, by all the huge construction projects in the suburban areas.  Some apartment developments invove maybe 20 buildings that are each 15 stories high.  It's just unbelievable to see the changes that are taking place in this country physically.   We had no problem finding the St. Rich Hotel where we had a reservation.  It is a modern highrise hotel.  The quality level is probably a bit nicer than the Villas where we stayed in Shanghai.  Both of them suffer from the fact that they could use a good carpet cleaning throughout, however.    At 5:30, we walked the 5 blocks from our hotel to the West Lake.  It is the prime attraction in Hangzhou and the centerpiece of a large park system that also includes mountains and villages in the area.  Many people were at the lake to watch the sunset.  We joined them, walking and watching both the people and the progress of the sun.  We got nice photos of the layers of mountains in the distance, the boats on the lake, the pagodas on tops of the mountains, etc.    Eventually, after the sun had set, we went inland.  We came to a large park that is a neighborhood gathering area.  Many people were doing dance exercises together.  Young children were taking inline skating lessons.  Elderly men were flying kites.  We relaxed and enjoyed watching all of these activities, then we progressed further down the street to the Night Market.   It was fun to see all the products for sale at the Night Market.  Some were just trinkets--junk for the children of families who come here for their vacations.  But many had high quality products for sale.  We stopped in an old pharmacy (from the 1600s) and had a glass of hot tea.  But mostly, we just strolled and watched the people.   On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a very popular local place for dinner.  There was no English menu, so i walked around to see what others were eating.  We ended up ordering the same two dishes that a couple near us were having--chicken wings with ketchup (fried chicken being a very popular food in Asia) and hotpot.  Hotpot is a steaming bowl of soup over flames.  This one included pieces of beef, potato, noodles, and various vegetables.  It came with a bowl of rice.  Besides the heat from the fire, it was also hot with peppers.  It was delicious.    Wed., May 12, 2010--Hangzhou   The hotel had a nice variety of food at its breakfast buffet this morning--a combination of both western and eastern dishes.  We tried several new things liking some and disliking others.  So far, our breakfasts have filled us enough to need nothing else until the end of the day.   We had trouble with our toilet last night.  It stuck in running mode.  I tried to explain the problem at the front desk, but they apparently didn't understand.  This morning, I drew pictures--a toilet and an egg which had broken open.  I went to the desk and explained with the drawings and while making a whooshing sound to indicate that the water would not stop running.  Apparently they understood this time, because the toilet was repaired when we returned to the room this afternoon.   In the meantime, we went exploring the West Lake area.  We walked about halfway around the lake, we went up trails on the mountain behind the lake seeing a pagoda, a couple of caves where Buddhist figures are located, a sunrise point, etc.  We walso walked a causeway and explored an island inside the lake.  The weather was perfect--sunny with maybe 78 degrees F (24 degrees C).  We stopped often to watch people and to rest up from the effort it took to climb in the mountains.  People we encountered were all friendly.  We were the only westerners on the mountain trails, however.  Our entire outing was about 5 hours.  Wes is now napping while I type this to update the blog.  We will go out again soon for the sunset again today.

Days in Shanghai

May 6-7, 2010, San Antonio to Shanghai   We were up too, too early this morning. Wes' flight was at 5:35, so we were up around 2:45. Early morning is a horrible time to fly. But we got ready and left for the airport. I dropped Wes off at his terminal and then went to park the car, since I had more time before my flight at 6:25. I have gotten so used to all the automatic features on my car that I couldn't figure out how to get his key out of the lock! Finally, I realized that I had not put the transmission in PARK. I'm a bit worried about his car. One of the lots is being stripped, and there is a sign saying that cars will be towed if left there. Being gone for 3 weeks, I fear that the lot where I parked will also be stripped before Wes returns to get the car. Hope not.   My flights included going through Chicago. I was lucky. My connecting gate was close, and there was a mailbox there so that I could send back my parking tag I had to take with me after getting into the parking lot.   I had a horrible seatmate on the 13 1/2 hour flight from Chicago to Shanghai! He stank. I think it was a combination of bad teeth and being a heavy smoker. Whatever it was, I had to try to stay turned away. Also, he was an intruder expecting his elbow to be perfectly fine across the armrest and poking me. I quickly solved that problem by putting my pillow between my body and the armrest so that he was restricted to invading no more than my half of the armrest.   I was a bit shocked by the service from United Airlines. It was the worst I have ever had. The plane seemed old and worn. The meals were smaller and planer. It makes me glad that this is my last around-the-world travel. I would not want another flight that is so long with such poor service. It makes me worry about Continental and its service now that they are merging.   The flight was too, too long. I watched four films and parts of another two that I had previously seen in the theaters. I was so glad to touch down in Shanghai. Fortunately, I could stay in the baggage claim area (behind customs) until Wes' flight arrived about an hour later. My bag was one of the last ones off, and there were some maps and some literature I could read while waiting. Unfortunately, Wes' bag did not arrive with him.   We took the maglev (magnetic levitation) train to come into town. It was not operating yet when I arrived here before. It was FAST. We were passing cars on the expressway that looked like they were barely moving. However, there was a roughness to the ride I did not expect. I had always read that maglev trains would be smooth since they are going over a thin cushion of air. It's necessary to transfer to the metro for the last section of the trip into the center of the city (6 stops away). We did so easily without the car being too packed. I got a place with my bag right next to an exit door. By the time we got to town, the car was packed and I warned Wes ahead of time that we would get off at the next stop. He didn't seem to understand the urgency for getting closer to the door. I pushed my way out as others came in. I turned around and there was no Wes. He was behind 2-3 people and could not get out. I used a technique I've seen before. I reached inside, grabbed this arm, and pulled him through the crowd and out of the car. Everyone smiled. I assumed they were impressed that I knew what to do!! I guess i would have waited for Wes to take a train back and find me if I hadn't been able to get him off.   We were so tired that we went to bed at 7:30 p.m. We slept well until about 5:00 a.m. Then we got up and slowly got ready for our first day in Shanghai.     Sat., May 8, Shanghai   Breakfast here at the hotel is a combination of western and Chinese with more of an emphasis on the latter. We had noodles, rice, soups, boiled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and toast. There was no jam, no chile sauce, and no salt, so it was a bit bland. But it was better than some of the breakfasts I have had in Chinese hotels before.   We spent the morning at the Shanghai Museum which is now free. That's nice. We saw sculptures, porcelain, furniture, costumes, jade, etc. There were special exhibits from the Uffizi Galleries in Italy and about the Portuguese man who first came to China and influenced its future.   From there, we walked to the French Concession--the part of town where the French were restricted to live in the early part of the 1900s. It is a tree-lined area with old mansions and is now a rather trendy part of town.   Being tired, we returned to the room to rest in the afternoon. Then we went out again in the early evening to walk down the Shopping Street which is a pedestrian area with lots of lights and many people. We tired out again quickly, though, and returned to the hotel and went to bed again at 7:30 p.m. for the second night in a row.   Around 10:00 p.m., the doorbell rang. It was Wes' bag, although he slept through it all and didn't know it had arrived until I announced in the morning that Santa Claus had arrived overnight!     Sunday, May 9, 2010--Shanghai   Drizzle today! We were up early as usual and had breakfast when the restaurant opened. But we came back to the room and watched the news and napped until almost noon. The weather wasn't improving, so we dropped our plans. We did decide to take the metro across the river and go to a shopping mall in Pudong, the modern part of Shanghai.   The mall was big and almost half of it was taken up by restaurants doing a good business. We spent a couple of hours just wandering through it. Wes bought an umbrella since we couldn't find his when we unpacked his suitcase. We aren't sure what happened to it. We thought we packed it. Could someone at one of the airports have decided to remove it because of bad weather along the way? Otherwise, it should be in my guest bedroom when I get back. But both of us checked the room without seeing it. When we came out, the drizzle had stopped temporarily, so we walked to the riverfront to see the view toward the Bund. The drizzle began again, so we headed back to the hotel and watched a film on TV.   We stopped for information while out. The weather tomorrow should be better. That's good, because we hope to visit the Expo 2010.   Note:  It is now Tuesday and we are headed to Hangzhou.  We were at the Expo yesterday.  Unfortunately, we have not been able to be on the Internet until now because of poor communication.  The hotel doesn't have wi-fi.  But they failed to tell us that they have cable Internet.  We discovered it this morning as Wes checked our room to make sure we were not leaving anything.  He found a computer cable in the drawer!!  We tried McDonalds, but it only allows residents to use its wi-fi (so that the Chinese government can follow what EVERYONE is doing)!  We looked for cyber cafes, but we never found one.  Anyway, if our hotel in Hangzhou has either wi-fi or cable, we will update later today or tomorrow.