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• Back from China and awake...

  Monday, Jun 11, 2007 1:23PM / Standard Entry / Life / Members only
  6 comments

  What an amazing trip! I’m just barely now recovering from my jet lag. We flew into Beijing around 9:45 at night on the 15^th. After a 45 minute cab, we made it to our hotel, The Beijing New World Apartments.

  

  Our room at the Beijing New World Apartments

  Basicaly a 2 room condo with a kitchen for $60 USD a night. It’s very close to the Chongwenmen train station and shares the building with a really large mall, New World Mall.

  

  The New World Mall front entrance

  The manager was super nice and actually did laundry for us since the laundry in the building was being repaired. The only downside to this room was NO INTERNET. We had to go across the street to a pretty seedy internet “café” for 5rmb/hr.

  We spent the whole week here. With trips to The Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and The Summer Palace on my birthday! Some buddies from ShaChaHai Sports school took us out one night to Kai and Vics, a huge dance club. We had a great time and didn’t want to leave…

  

  Outside the Tiananmen building

  Originally we planned to take a train from Beijing to Yangshuo in order to explore the Li River. Once we heard that the Beijing Wushu team took 30 hours on a train to go to their tournament in Wenzhou (just south of Shanghai), we decided it would be better to fly. Smart move! It would have been around 50 hours and not comfortable compared to the 4 hour flight!

  Yangzhou was pretty much a tourist trap and full of people trying to sell you stuff. It was a little annoying at times, but we still had fun. We rented bikes one morning and headed down on our own, to find the Moon Water Cave. After at least an hour riding in around 100 degree Fahrenheit weather, we found it.

  

  The entrance to the Moon River Cave

  I’m a bit claustrophobic, so halfway through the cave I started feeling a little dizzy and almost took the mid-way exit. I thought about it a little and finally decided I’d go for it! We made it through the rest of the cave, tasting fresh water and having a swarm of bats fly around our heads….awesome. J

  

  Inside the Moon River Cave heading deeper…

  The next few days we spent living at a local house right on the Li River. With no electricity the first night, it was pretty fun. The family there is great and you can see their contact info and learn more about the Li River part of our trip at theChinapedia.com

  

  A water buffalo behind our house

   

  

  The Li River at dusk

  

  Our room from outside

  The Li River was awesome though and I highly recommend checking it out especially for those of you in Hong Kong as it’s not far to fly to Guilin from there.

  After 3 days down around the Li River, we headed over to Shanghai. I’d never been here and was completely surprised by the number of foreigners here. Ever third person was European or American! It was a little strange, but we ignored them mostly. My step brother, who lives in Shanghai, told us a few places to visit so we checked out the city and then met him for dinner. The Bund, Yu Gardens, and the French Quarter were all pretty cool spots. We even found a guy making Dragon Beard Candy on the street. I’d been searching for several days and had just about given up, when we came around a corner and there he was!

  

  Welcome to flavor country! It’s Dragon Beard Candy!

    

  Daniel was everywhere in Shanghai and Beijing!

  Overall Shanghai was pretty nice but I definitely prefer Beijing. Shanghai felt so much like a European city, I wasn’t sure if I was still in China!

  

  Pearl Tower in Pudong, Shanghai

  Anyway it’s great to be back to the US. It was a long two weeks in China and although we had such a blast every single day, it’s really nice to lay on my couch and reach into my own fridge for an ice cold one.

   

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