Day 8 – West Lake and “The bus ride”

10/14/2009 06:55:00 AM Tully Mars

Sean and I have figured out that most of the tour is about walking so slowly as to drive both of us completely insane! Ninety percent of the time he and I are in the back of the group messing around and heading off in other directions because the guides walk SO SLOWLY from point to point. We really can’t know for sure, but we think they are as lost as we are and walk slowly figuring if we pass the same point over and over again we will never know. If he and I were leading the group this would be a 4 ½ day tour instead of a 12 day. Think of the money we would save on hotels and food – ha, ha.




Well we headed back over to West Lake and got to ride a Chinese yacht! Okay it was just a tour boat but you should now be getting the theme of the way they name things here. The lake tour was pretty nice, but as you can imagine that Sean was pretty excited about riding a boat and walking around a park. If memory serves he does that all the time when we are at home. There are some really interesting things to see, along with getting the stories and history behind the pagodas and bridges. Especially how and why they name some of the sites and their Chinese character meanings.



After cruising the lake for 40 minutes (followed by an exhausting walk thru the park – LOL) we headed to the Dragon Well Tea Plantation. Now I was actually looking forward to this part of the tour. It is one of the places where I planned on spending a little money on good green tea. I figured, what the heck, I might as well buy it at the source. The most interesting part was learning about how the land is divided up and families assigned to specific parcels to farm the tea. They are required to farm the land and pay the government in the form of tea for taxation for the use of the land. The farms then can sell the balance of the tea to the plantation or use it for personal use. No one owns any land in China, it is all “owned” by the government and the government determines the proper use of that land and how it’s allocated. I still don’t have the whole picture, but it’s very different from our property ownership ideas we have in the states. (Oh yes, I purchased about ¾ of a pound of fresh green tea for about 600 yuan – you figure out the conversion.)




The bus ride from Hangzhou to Shanghai took just about the rest of the afternoon. Bill always has the driver stop at a pit stop along the way to visit the “happy room”. It’s been very interesting to browse the shops at the stop area to see what is available for purchase. We’ve been grabbing little goodies along the way and trying the tastes of China “7-Eleven” snacks. So far, I have been the only one to take to those flavors. Sean, just today, found some stuff he liked. We are all losing weight because of the high veggie and smaller portions of food. We may have take on this type of eating when we get home.



Sean has a friend who draws these little characters on stickers that they plaster on telephone or power poles back home. He has brought some along to sticker here in China. The interesting part of Sean’s vandilizism is that here the poles are all clean with no advertizing or other junk or markings on the poles. He stuck one up near the first hotel and the following day it was gone, so I guess he is keeping someone in a government paid job. I told him if he gets caught and gets tossed in jail, he’s on his own!


Cruising the lake

Happy in the park

Drying the tea

Learning about the different grades of tea

Lotus in the lake along a walk to one of the pagodas

Taking a break in the park
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Day 7 – Happy Buddha and McDonalds

10/14/2009 05:41:00 AM Tully Mars

Now in Hangzhou, we are headed to Lingyi Temple a Buddhist temple originally constructed in 326 AD. With literally hundreds of other tourist and locals, we wander around the temple and try to take in over 300 Buddhist sculptures, halls and other sites. This is an active Buddhist site, including monks that live and worship at Lingyi Temple. Our local guide, Cherry was really fun and allowed us to explore on our own.

Following the temple we ended up in the Number 1 Chinese Medicine Muesuem. They mix EVERYTHING together to cure all your ailements. Unfortunately when Martha (one of our fellow tourist) asked about something for snoring, they told her “we no have anything to kill that”! We all busted out laughing at their response to her question. It might have had to do something with her snoring or rather growling like a lion to imitate her sounds. They might have thought we were asking for something to kill lions!


Following the temple we ended up in the Number 1 Chinese Medicine Museum. They mix EVERYTHING together to cure all your ailments. Unfortunately when Martha (one of our fellow tourist) asked about something for snoring, they told her “we no have anything to kill that”! We all busted out laughing at their response to her question. It might have had to do something with her snoring or rather growling like a lion to imitate her sounds. They might have thought we were asking for something to kill lions!

During our bus trip from Suzhou to Hangzhou, Bill (our national guide) recounted his life story from the small village where he grew up as literally a poor farm boy, passing the national exam to attend college, joining the “Red Guard” that followed Mao Zhang Tsing and his adventures in the revolution in China. He even brought along his red arm band that distinguished him from others during the revolution. Bill definitely has had some very interesting experiences growing up in China.



Sean was getting tired of always having “Chinese” food and last night he ate lite at dinner because he spotted a McDonald’s just down the road from the hotel. Guess what he had for dinner! LOL Honestly the food has been great but as the tour goes on we are all definitely craving our home cuisines. Right now the majority of us are craving Mexican food. I guess that has become so ingrained in our culture we have accepted it as “American”. Even the Starbucks fixes, that we are getting every once in a while are not enough to stop the cravings for home cooking.



After dinner, Tricia and I paid to go see a fantastic show at West Lake. It was directed and put on by the same Chinese director that put on the 2008 Olympic Opening Ceremonies and it was worth every cent of the $33 we paid to attend! It was put on in the lake … yeap I said “in the lake”. The performers and actors seemed to walk on water and along with the lighting the effect was magnificent. The “stage” was about 5 acres of water surrounded by trees, pagodas and Chinese typical houses. All lite up with special colored lighting that flowed with the music. Since it was at night, photography was not really possible; even though I attempted to capture one of the scenes.



One of the several Buddha's in the Lingyi Temple


A small piece of Chinese History - Bill Huang's Red Guard arm band

Sean with one of the monks

At the market outside the Number 1 Chinese Medicine Museum

Look at the Happy Buddha!!

Sean getting his "Big Mac" fix
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Day 6 – Silk Pupae and the Emperor’s Concubines

10/13/2009 05:16:00 PM Tully Mars
The hotels in the states can take a lesson from the hotels we have stayed in! Every day breakfast is a massive buffet offering everything from western fare including pancakes and eggs to Chinese’s fare of noodle soup and dim sum dumplings. I’ve tried everything and the common theme of the both types of breakfast is small portions of meat with lots to vegetables and fruit. Tricia and I have noticed there are no over-weight Chinese and contribute this to the high vegetable and fruit diets. They eat meats; pork, beef, fish, shrimp and other exotics, but the primary ingredient to their dishes is veggies and fruit. Unfortunately, we have learned that KFC is huge here in China with McDonalds running a close second. The younger generation is getting sucked into the high complex carbohydrate diets, so they better be careful or they will follow the U.S. with the average weight of the population starting to increase.




Following breakfast we headed to the Number 1 Government Silk Factory. I was amazed of how they actually get the silk strands from the cocoons. The care of the silk worms, moths and pupae is done all by hand. Until now the harvesting of the silk was done by hand, but now they have figured out a way to automate the process. The pictures show the new machinery and the process.


Now the silk pupae that come from the cocoon is killed by boiling and the strands pulled from the cocoon by hand and loaded in the equipment. Eight cocoons are used to make one complete strand of silk running over 1,000 meters. Yeap, that’s right, a strand from one cocoon is longer than 1,000 meters or approximately 3,000 feet. They of course have strict standards for quality and only the whitest worms and cocoons are used for silk in the factory for Grade A.



The Chinese have figured out that the silk pupae are good for your health and skin. They all encouraged us to try a pupae to help extend our lives. We of course Sean and I tried them. They were actually pretty good! A woody flavor with a slightly sour taste punch in the end. Not at all what I expected, probably because they are boiled. The Chinese actually make a drink from them that the older generation drink every morning to improve their health.



Following the silk factory, we went to Longyi and small older community that is based on canals and lakes similar to Venice in Italy. A stop in another traditional garden we got a rare opportunity to visit with a great emperior from a little unknown provinence in the Suzhou. As you can see the great emperor has a beautiful first wife and many concubines. I personally think he was very impressive and all knowing of worldly things! LOL Needless to say, we all had fun at this garden.



We got to enjoy a short gondola ride thru Longyi and see the sights, sounds and of course smells of this small community. We were told that some of the older folks in the town were very superstitious about taking photographs. We had to make sure we got their permission to get any photos. There were a couple that did not give me permission to take their photo, but everyone was so friendly waving at us and saying hello.
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Day 5 – Airplane Food and Gardens

10/12/2009 02:28:00 AM Tully Mars

A box breakfast at the hotel starts off the day with a bang! LOL We head to the airport for our flight from Beijing to Shanghai, followed by a bus ride to Suzhou. Traveling half the day blew away any tourist activities unless you count flying China domestically. My banana, runny yogurt and fruit cocktail just wasn’t enough to get me started and I was actually looking forward to the airplane food! Now remember I am on an adventure so instead of getting the “western” breakfast, I opted for the “Chinese” breakfast. As I look around at everyone else’s selection (including other Chinese on the flight), I realize I may have made a mistake.


Actually the Chinese style airplane breakfast was a fermented egg, runny rice, pickled vegetables, fruit cup and what has not become called the surprise bread roll. Every bread roll I grab at breakfast or in some package has a surprise center. Not exactly sure what it is actually, but it hasn’t been bad at all. Slightly sweet but yet it has a meaty texture and flavor to it. Each one I get is different or at least I think it is!
After meeting our new “local” guide, we head to a classical Chinese garden to learn and be sucked into more tourist traps – LOL. The area is part of the Yangzi delta and is characterized by rice paddies, canals, lakes and pagodas. Seems the pollution is less down here and the humidity is higher. I wouldn’t want to be here during the summer months!

The garden is one of the few gardens open to the public and tourist. Apparently most of the gardens are private and cannot be visited by just anyone. We learned all about the four key elements of every garden and how everything is suppose to be picturesque. Sean was bored to tears! While Tricia and I got some good ideas about how to fix up the back yard. (No we are not going to build a classically Chinese Garden with the dumb dogs in the back!)
Every evening the dinners are getting better and better with this evening’s dinner not breaking the rule. Either that or we are getting use to the food. Every meal is served family style and we all share in several dishes that are typical for the area. Yes, Elyse is still having some issues with the food, but seems to be experimenting a little more. It’s all fun to be with a small group and watching everyone as we partake in a foreign culture.

Western Airplane Breakfast


Headed down the Lutong (Hutong) to the garden


One of the intricate carvings in the garden


View from the backside of the garden


This has been her look the entire trip!  Guess she's having fun.


The look of boredom - LOL


These gardens are really nice


First class accomidations!!  Guess what's in the basket?


Night is Suzhou
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Day 4 – Shopping the Scorpion

10/11/2009 02:53:00 AM Tully Mars

Our free day allowed us to start thinking about things like washing clothes and replacing the camera. The buildings around our hotel look like offices or apartments with heavy advertising on them. We figured the first couple of floors were shops and the upper floors offices, apartments or other types of business suites. Boy were we wrong! You enter either on the first floor or second floor via the outside walkways and realize there are 10-12 stories of shopping to be had. You would think that there would be electronics galore or computers or other electrical goodies, but everything is about fashion. Clothing stores occupy just about 80% of all the mall spaces we found in the buildings. With an average income of $10,000 per year and pricing just about 85% of what we pay in the states, we wonder how they can afford to be out shopping.


These places were literally packed all day long! Mostly the younger generation with their stylish western cloths, no glass (just rims) glasses, spiked hair styles, and the occasional suit and tie were the typical shopper we saw in the malls. I am using the term mall very loosely, meaning a large multi-story building with numerous shops located within. It was a fun experience, as Sean was in search of knock-off (fake) shoe styles and other gifts for his friends back home.

Sean and I just had to have Sushi in China and found a restaurant that met our needs. The food was pretty good and pricing was decent, but we surely missed Sushi Garden’s type of Sushi. We ended up eating some things we had no idea what they were and getting our fill of raw fish, squid and what not for around $35 for the both of us. Tricia spotted a Pizza Hut on one of the lower levels and told us we had to take her there for lunch. This was probably the most interesting part of the day, because the Chinese version of Pizza Hut serves much more than pizza and pasta! Crab croquettes, chicken stuffed pot pies, green tea shakes, dim sum dumplings and much more that is not offered in the states. To tell the truth there was only two pages of the menu that offered traditional Pizza Hut fare, the other 14 pages (yes – 14 pages) were full of interesting stuff.
Both Sean and I have been fighting the pollution in our own ways since we got here. My face has been stinging like I have a slight rash under my eyes and around my beard. While Sean has had allergy type symptoms; the runny nose and watery eyes. Sean comments about my eyes every evening being red and blood shot. We gave Sean a Advil Cold to relieve his symptoms and he ended up going out like a light when we returned to the room. Tricia and I decided to let him sleep and recover while we headed over to the night market at Wangfujing.

Wangfujing is Beijing’s most famous shopping area with high end shopping stores and a “China Town” in China. Literally an adverturous food lover’s paradise! Along one of the streets they have the outside food vendors lined up with all kinds of “stuff on a stick”. Everything from lamb, beef, chicken, pig’s penis, scorpions, silk worm larva, crickets, sea horses and lizards … if you can skewer it on a stick and deep fat fry it, it’s at this market. I can’t wait until they make cameras with a smell a vision option. The photos just can’t capture the aroma coming from the entire market!

I was in search of the scorpions to have a go and see what they are like. Tricia on the other hand had other ideas for me. She told me I can’t try any of “that stuff” until after the wedding! She’s too afraid that I will get sick or something, so I ended up with 3 fried crabs on a stick and some really cool pictures. Now we need to find the night market in Shanghai!
I videoed the live scorpions on a stick and hope I can get them uploaded shortly!.

Everyone is employed and they have 9 girls to handle this counter.



More goodies

Cha for sale - in all flavors and tastes!


The most common fare at Wangfujing


Seafood - shrimp, small lobsters, squid


Scorpions that I can't eat!!!  Crickets, silk worm larve, bee larve - yummy!


Crab with silt worm larve in the back ground


Good marketing! Put enlish names on everything and you will sell more!


Sea urchins with the "usual fare" - the pigs penis are under her hand!


Softshell crab was the only thing Tricia would let me eat!!!


Lizards and sea horses - wonder if they taste like chicken?


China Town in Beijing - go figure!

It's a little crowded!  You really need smell-a-vision in this market!
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