Chengdu

We were in Chengdu for three days and found it to be the most relaxed city out of the ones we've seen in China: people don't seem to be in a hurry and spend their days drinking tea, playing chess, chatting and hanging out.

We went to a few pedestrian-only areas which were filled with tea houses and boutiques, all retrofitted to the traditional style. We also had some delicious Szechuan food including ma po tofu, several kinds of noodles and dumplings, and spicy hot pot.

My favourite part about Chengdu, however, has to be the pandas. We saw our first pair of pandas back at the Taipei Zoo at the end of May, but here at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Base, there were more than 20 pandas of all ages! Apparently over 80% of pandas in China can be found in Szechuan. They are so adorable, I could watch them all day!

Fenghuang

We took a 4.5 hour bus ride south of Zhangjiajie into a village made up of houses on stilts built along a river. The canals & gondoliers, the narrow, winding, cobblestoned alleyways, and even the street vendors reminded us of Venice.

The photos make Fenghuang look more peaceful and serene than it is: the nightlife here is one of its major selling points (bars & clubs abound) and though I found myself wishing it was less tourist trappy and commercial, I can't deny that Fenghuang is rather pretty.

Zhangjiajie

So far all the photos you've seen are from that ridiculously cheap 7-day tour of Shanghai and surroundings that we'd signed up for (6 nights at 5-star hotels, three meals a day, transportation to/from all attractions for $49/person -- how can you say no?). And whilst the hotels were a solid A+, the meals were quite bland, the shopping stops were soul-sucking, the days were long and exhausting, and we didn't feel like we were seeing the real China. We had to break free from the herd.

Besides, we needed the flexibility to abort our trip at any time in case my grandmother's conditions worsened (she's 100 and has been in hospital for nearly three weeks due to an infection in her lungs) or Mike's gastrointestinal troubles returned. So we bailed on the other two tours we'd tentatively booked and became free agents again.

We still wanted to see all the places we'd set out on our itinerary, but after Shanghai, we were on our own. Our first stop: Zhangjiajie. Remember in "Avatar" when they're flying around on birds through these cool floating rock valleys? That's this place. And was it ever cool.

We grabbed ourselves a room with a mountain view in the village at the foot of the forest park and spent two days hiking into the peaks and along the creek in the valley and admired the beauty and awesomeness of nature.

Zhangjiajie was honestly like the land before time... we kept expecting to see some sort of prehistoric life form to appear from around the corner. We took a gazillion photos so you can see for yourself --

Wuxi

Near the town of Wuxi, we went to see one of the largest Buddha statues in the world: The Grand Buddha of Ling Shan.

Suzhou

These are from the Lingering Garden, the first classical Chinese garden residence on our trip. One of the four most famous gardens in China, it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I absolutely love the classical Chinese design with its signature meandering outdoor hallways, courtyard gardens & ponds, gorgeous woodwork and picture windows. Imagine this be your home?!

Nanjing

The big attraction here is Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Mausoleum in Zhongshanlin. This guy led the revolution against the last emperor of China in the Qing dynasty and founded the Republic of China (R.O.C.) in 1911. He's a pretty big deal in both Taiwan & China and this place was his old hunting grounds and where he asked to be buried. (My sister's place in Taipei is a 10-minute walk from his memorial).

Hangzhou

Here we stopped at West Lake and wandered through the gardens surrounding this freshwater lake. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, West Lake was once the inspiration for several famous poets and a personal favourite of Qianlong, a beloved emperor of the Qing Dynasty.

Shanghai

I'm going to go with the "a picture is worth a thousand words" route for all posts during our China trip. Less work for me and more fun for you.

So here we go, first stop: Shanghai. In China's largest city, we went to the alleys around Chenghuang Temple, browsed artifacts at the Shanghai Museum, got a foot massage, walked through the French Quarter, checked out the night scene on The Bund (either side of the riverbank), witnessed the acrobatic marvels of the Shanghai Circus, and took the ultra-high-speed magnetic levitation tram out to the airport.

(again, with the limited functionalities of the Blogger app, I'm not sure how and in what order the photos are going to appear so you'll just have to adjust to any bad layouts)