China

October 15-29, 2010
In October of 2010 I made a very quick pass through 7 cities in China. I started in Hong Kong and then moved on to Qingdao, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou (the last two were day trips from Shanghai.) Five of the cities I visited I had been to before and yet I was able to see new places in each one.

In Hong Kong I took a walk to the Yuen Po Bird Market and was fascinated by the birds that were being brought to this beautiful "alley" to display. I was expecting a lot of little shops and maybe some people selling birds based on the description I had read, but it was really a social gathering. There were probably 75 men and a few women hanging out, checking out each others birds and generally enjoying each others company. I was a bit intimidated taking pictures of them and did not get any great shots, but I will probably go back next time now that I am familiar with the place. One of the things I noticed this trip was the number of bird lovers and birds as pets. I understand this has only recently been the case since the bird flu epidemic some years back.

The next stop was Qingdao (24 hours) and it was a bit of a weird arrival. As the plane descended we were engulfed in a fog that made the area look eerie. It did not have the same smell or feel that fog at home does so I did not think it was fog. The next morning the sun was out and I realized we were near the sea. The terrain reminded me of southern California; brown rolling hills, rocky outcroppings all over.

The next 24 hours was in Tianjin. Tianjin was interesting for the beauty of the city. It was clean and modern with wide streets and big shopping malls. The funny story I heard was prior to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 Tianjin was not so nice looking. I was told that a city so near to Beijing could not "show up" the capital city by looking nicer, but the Olympics and the influx of tourists changed the rule and they spruced it up. The best item was an unfinished building near our offices whose financing had apparently fallen through years ago. The government put scaffolding up around it to give the appearance of being worked on. The scaffolding is gone and the building is still uncompleted.

We drove to Beijing, but the fog was so thick I didn't really see a lot of the countryside. The weekend in Beijing was pretty cool. Friday night we went to a little tourist alley that had a myriad of food stalls serving everything from tarantulas to lizards to bugs to BBQ'd scorpions on a stick. The scorpions were crunchy and salty. We stayed away from the other stuff.

On Saturday we went to the Summer Palace and spent most of the morning wandering around. It is a huge place. Once again, it was very foggy and the scenery pictures aren't as good as I would like, but there were still some interesting things. There was a woman there in the open area playing with a hacky-sack like toy who must have been 70. She was having a blast.

3 more cities to go... I'll try to finish tomorrow.

So... it's not tomorrow. It's a couple of months later and here I am. I am not the most active bloggers.

After Beijing I headed for Shanghai. This was probably the 5th time I have been to Shanghai and I am pretty familiar with it by now. On Sunday morning one of my co-workers took me to an area called Tian Zi Fang. Very cool old area of Shanghai that has been turned into little boutique restaurants and shops, but still retains a lot of the old look.

One of the more interesting things I saw in Shanghai was right across the street from the hotel. There's a park I was wandering in taking pictures and there must have been 20 wedding parties there getting their pictures taken. Popular place. There was also a guy walking his birds. They took a bath in the fountain and then he wandered off with them on his shoulders.