We lost about eight hours traveling east to Shanghai, arriving at the new airport in Pu Dong around noon. It took an hour to go through immigration, then 45 minutes by taxi to find my hotel, The Xin Kai Fu Hotel in Shanghai. The hotel has a 3 star rating, is located in a commercial section of the city, but my room is huge and it is one-fifth the cost of my hotel in London. I spent the afternoon speaking with various people at the New Zealand and Australian Consulates here in Shanghai trying to determine the requirements of getting Cindy a visa to visit those countries. She’ll arrive tomorrow from Beijing and we plan to tour Western China if we can’t get a visa immediately to go to New Zealand. I skipped dinner and since I had not really slept on the plane, I decided to go to bed early. Saturday, November 16, 2002 – Shanghai, China I had breakfast at the hotel this morning and was the only Westerner in the restaurant. I declined the knife and fork, which the manager offered me and concentrated on using my chopsticks as every eye in the room, seemed to be on me. I walked from my hotel to The Bund, which is about a mile away, and then spent a couple hours walking around various neighborhoods. I stopped at The Peace Hotel where I hope to move in a couple days. I purchased some food at a local market causing much panic when I paid with a 100 RMB note (about $12 US), but they were finally able to come up with enough change. Back at my hotel, I used the computer in the business center to send some email and then went back to my room to watch the Masters tennis tournament, which is being played here in Shanghai. Cindy arrived around 6:00 PM and we walked over to a local restaurant for dinner and then walked through some of the neighborhood, which surrounds the hotel. Sunday, November 17, 2002 – Shanghai, China Today we walked over to an apartment building offering furnished apartments on a daily basis. I was surprised to find a very modern building with all the amenities of a 4 star hotel, so we decided to move first thing tomorrow morning. Afterwards, we walked to The Bund and then had lunch at The Peace Hotel overlooking the harbor. We went shopping in the afternoon and I purchased a sport jacket and a pair of slacks for 400 RMB. The weather was worsening so we headed back to the hotel where we worked on Cindy’s New Zealand visa application. In the evening we walked out in a new direction and found a local restaurant where we ate dinner. Cindy phoned her sister Nicole, who is studying here in Shanghai, and we arranged to meet for dinner tomorrow night at our new apartment. Monday, November 18, 2002 – Shanghai, China We took a taxi to The New Zealand Consulate to get the necessary forms for Cindy’s visa. We also visited the Australian Consulate for the same reason. Afterwards, we went back and checked out of our hotel and then moved over to The New Harbor Apartments where we took a 2-bedroom apartment for $95/day. We ate lunch in the restaurant in the building. In the afternoon, I spent an hour working our in the building’s health club while Cindy slept. Nicole arrived at 6:00 PM and we went out for dinner at Tony Roma’s, a restaurant serving western food, where we ordered a huge quantity of ribs. Cindy & Nicole got drunk on one drink. After dinner, we took a taxi to a new shopping/nightlife area where we walked around for a couple hours without buying anything. At 11:30 PM we took a taxi back to the apartment where Nicole spent the night. Tuesday, November 19, 2002 – Shanghai, China We had a nice breakfast at the building’s buffet breakfast this morning and then Nicole left for school. Cindy and I spent an hour working out in the health club and then had an early lunch. We took a taxi over to Nicole’s school, The LaSalle International College of Design, where she is studying fashion design. She showed us around her campus and then we went to Carrefours, a large grocery store, to buy food for dinner, which Cindy & Nicole planned to cook. The store was an amazing place, probably 100,000 square feet selling everything from skinned rabbits (they leave the fur on the feet) to fresh bullfrogs, which they will skin for you upon request. Cindy & Nicole made a wonderful dinner of duck, chicken, soup and bamboo shoots. We spent the evening watching movies on HBO. Wednesday, November 20, 2002 – Shanghai, China Today it is raining so we decided not to go out. Nicole had spent the night and left for school after breakfast. I spent some time in the health club and then went to the business center to investigate airfares to New Zealand, which turn out to be very expensive. I think Cindy should be able to get much better prices through her connections. Nicole got back about 6:00 PM and we went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. Afterwards, we went to a shopping mall where they decided to get their haircut while I window-shopped. We got back to the apartment at 10:30 PM and watched TV until midnight. Thursday, November 21, 2002 – Shanghai, China Today we began the process of getting Cindy the visa to go to New Zealand. We started by taking the train two hours south to Hang Zhou where we went to a government office to pick up a form required for the visa. Then we took a taxi 40 minutes to her family home to get some more official documents. Then we took the same taxi another 40 minutes to another home where she had stayed while she worked in another city to get some more documents. After getting the documents stamped by officials in each town, we rushed back to the official government notary office to get everything notarized. Our train back to Shanghai was delayed until 6:30 PM and we didn’t arrive back in the apartment until 9:15 PM. Nicole came at 9:45 PM and we ordered room service for dinner. I went to bed early while Cindy stayed up and helped Nicole with her homework. Friday, November 22, 2002 – Shanghai, China Today after breakfast we took all the paperwork we collected yesterday over to the New Zealand Consulate and submitted the application for Cindy’s New Zealand visa. Then we went to a travel agent to arrange the flight. Just prior to paying for the tickets, I called the consulate to make sure we would be able to obtain the visa before the flight we had scheduled for next week. As it turns out, they could not promise us a visa in anything less than 20 working days so we had to completely change our plans. Our new schedule is to go to Western China, Yunnan Province on Monday for a week or ten days. I’ll go to California for Christmas then head back to Shanghai in mid-January. If Cindy has the visa, we’ll go to New Zealand before I go to Africa in February. Saturday, November 23, 2002 – Shanghai, China We had breakfast and then spent an hour working out and another hour on-line. Nicole came over at 2:00 PM and we went to The Hard Rock Café for lunch. After lunch, we went to buy Cindy some hiking boots at a local mall. At 6:00 PM we took a taxi to Pu Dong and went to the 87th floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel for drinks and had a spectacular view of Shanghai and The Bund. We left the Hyatt after a couple hours, took some pictures outside the building, and then took a taxi back to the apartment. Nicole went home and Cindy and I skipped dinner but stayed up to watch a movie. Sunday, November 24, 2002 – Shanghai, China Today was hazy and we stayed home most of the day. We did venture out a couple blocks for lunch in a special soup restaurant and then spent the afternoon in the health club and business center. Late in the afternoon, we went swimming in the indoor pool. We went out for dinner and then went back to the apartment to work on our plans for our trip to Western China tomorrow. Monday, November 25, 2002 – Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China We checked out of The New Harbor Serviced Apartments on Yongshou Street at 7:00 AM and took a taxi to the old airport. Out flight to Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province was at 8:50 AM where we need to figure out how to get to Lijiang. There is a flight at 4:40 PM, but it might be more interesting to take the train, as the region is mountainous. Upon arrival, we discovered there was no train, so we bought tickets for the 4:40 PM flight. We spent the four hours waiting in the airport and having lunch in the airport restaurant. Through Cindy’s travel agent, we made reservations at the Guan Fang Lijiang Hotel, which we’ll use as a base to explore the province. We sat next to someone on the plane who suggested we try to visit Burma, but if we have extra time, I would rather go to Tibet. We took a taxi from the airport in Lijiang to the hotel, which was very nice. We ate dinner in the hotel’s Chinese restaurant, and then played ping-pong and bowled a few games in the hotel’s bowling center before having foot massages. There do not seem to be many guests in the hotel, as we did not see anyone in any of the recreation facilities.
We came back to the Guan Fang Hotel in the afternoon and played ping-pong for an hour. We walked to the supermarket and purchased food for our hike tomorrow, and then got dressed to go back to the ancient town for dinner and a musical performance. At 5:00 PM we took a taxi to the Ancient Town and walked around for a couple hours before sitting down at a little restaurant near the river for dinner. We saw a westerner looking at a map of the Tiger Leaping Gorge and found that she was planning to hike the gorge tomorrow also and did not know how to get there. We told her of the bus we were taking and made arrangements to meet here at the bus stop tomorrow morning. At 8:00 PM we went to a musical performance of Naxi Ancient Music. This turned out to be a fabulous concert by a musical group, which has been in existence for 447 years! They perform music from the 16th century on instruments that were in use during that time period. Many of the members of the group are in their eighties. The group’s leader is Xuan Ke who was 73 but looked about 50, even though he’d spent 21 years in prison during the Cultural Revolution. He spoke for about 10 minutes between each song and even though he spoke in Chinese, I could tell he was very funny. The concert was over at 9:30 PM and we went back to the hotel to pack for our trip. Wednesday, November 27, 2002 – Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan Province, China
The ascent of the other side was another 700 meters up, and then we walked about 5 km along a new paved road, stopping at Sean’s Guest House for some tea. Another 2 km at Tina’s Guest House, there was much blasting and construction of what looked to be a suspension bridge. The road had been washed out here in a large and recent avalanche making vehicular traffic non-existent. We left the road at this point and headed up the mountainside. The ascent from this point grew in difficulty but Cindy did a good job. At 5:30 PM we arrived at Five Fingers Mountain Guest House where we decided to stay for the night.
There were 18 guests at the lodge from many different countries. We socialized in the courtyard while the kitchen people prepared a huge feast including fresh killed chicken. We did not eat until 9:00 PM but the food was very good. We went to bed before 10:00 PM and planned to get up early and continue our trip in the morning.
The gorge is really beautiful and I took many photographs of the huge mountains dropping down into the small Yangtze River below. There is a water trough that runs along the trail, which is sometimes made of stone and sometimes made of wood. We hiked for about four hours passing through small villages with terraced farm plots. We passed several waterfalls, one of which cascaded right over the trail. At about 1:00 PM, we reached the highest point of the trail, 2670 meters, and then began our descent via the 28 Turns, to Nuo Yu Village. There, we stopped for lunch at The Naxi Family Guesthouse, which has a wonderful view of the mountains peeking up over the rooftops. The family had just harvested the corn crop and was in the process of separating the kernels from the cobs.
We determined that there was a 4:00 PM bus back to Lijiang and since we had at least an hour and a half to go, we left the Naxi house at 2:00 PM to finish our hiking. The trail down was good, but it took us two hours to reach the bottom. Hanna raced ahead to try to keep the bus from leaving without us, but as it turned out, we found a private car, which we were able to charter for 100 Yuan ($12.00) for the 2-hour trip back to Lijiang. We got back to the city at 6:00 PM and dropped Hanna off at the entrance to the Ancient Town where she was staying and continued on to our new hotel, The Jade Dragon Garden Hotel, where we planned to stay for two nights. After showering and getting some food, which we ate in the room, we fell asleep early. Friday, November 29, 2002 – Lijiang, China Today we woke up late and breakfast had almost closed by the time we got there. We ate a few things from what was left of the buffet. I went to thee business center while Cindy went to investigate tickets for a show at the hotel this evening. Our room had been very cold last night and after talking about the things we did not like about the hotel, we decided to move back to The Guan Fang Hotel. We notified the front desk of our decision to leave one day early and went back to our room to pack. The Guan Fang Hotel is located in the new section of Lijiang and has a five star rating, but with Cindy’s connections we can stay there for less than at The Jade Dragon Garden Hotel. We did some laundry in the afternoon, had lunch in a little storefront restaurant, and then went back to the hotel in the late afternoon. We slept through dinnertime and decided to skip it when we woke up late. Saturday, November 30, 2002 – Lijiang, China After breakfast I met Cindy in the business center and then we took a taxi to The Ancient Town where we browsed the shops and bought some gifts. We had lunch in a restaurant, which featured special dishes including Fried Bee Cocoons, Fried Bamboo Worms and many other unbelievable delicacies. We ordered bamboo shoots without the worms.
We looked at another traditional Chinese hotel in the Ancient Town where we will probably move for our last night in Lijiang. We met many local people during our shopping today and took many photos of day-to-day life in the ancient town. We had tea in the afternoon, and then returned to The Guan Fang Hotel.
Sunday, December 1, 2002 – Lijiang, China This morning after breakfast we walked to The Ancient Town so I could pass by a Bank of China and withdraw some cash from the ATM. The Bank of China is the only bank, which will accept my ATM card, and very few businesses in Lijiang accept credit cards. I need to withdraw the maximum allowance from my account each day in order to have enough money to pay the hotel bills and get airline tickets back to Shanghai. We walked around the shops in the town and purchase some souvenirs. Cindy dressed in a Meow Minority wedding costume and we took some photos of that and several local people dressed in their everyday clothes. We ate lunch at The Blue Papaya and enjoyed excellent Italian food.
We decided to move to The Lijiang Jaquanhui Hotel in The Ancient Town tomorrow for two nights and then fly back to Shanghai on Wednesday. We purchased our airline tickets on our way back to the hotel. We played ping-pong and bowled a few games before having dinner at the western buffet for the second time in two nights. Monday, December 2, 2002 – Lijiang, China I had promised Cindy I would give her one more chance to try to beat me at ping-pong this morning, but the recreation center was closed. Instead, we went back and watched ‘Out of Africa’ on TV. We checked-out of the Guan Fang Hotel and moved to The Lijiang Jiquanhui Hotel in the Ancient Town just after noon. We had had such a good lunch at The Blue Papaya that we went back there for lunch again today. Afterwards, we continued our shopping in the little shops for most of the afternoon. At dinner, we went to a restaurant recommended in The Lonely Planet Guide and had pizza and lasagna. I spent some time on-line at the restaurant after dinner and then we walked back to our hotel for the night. Tuesday, December 3, 2002 – Lijiang, China
Wednesday, December 4, 2002 – Shanghai, China I was feeling better in the morning after a rather bad night. I think the food I ate for lunch yesterday must have been bad, but Cindy ate the same food and had no reaction. We checked-out of our hotel and took a taxi to the Lijiang Airport where we boarded our flight to Shanghai. We made one stop and arrived in Shanghai at 2:00 PM. After collecting our luggage we took a taxi back to the apartment building where we had stayed the previous week. I was exhausted after getting little sleep last night so we ordered pizza delivery and stayed in for the night. Thursday, December 5, 2002 – Shanghai, China Today it rained and we spent most of the day indoors catching up on laundry and working in the business center. We had leftover pizza for lunch and watched a movie on HBO. At 2:30 PM, Nicole came over and gave Cindy three dresses she had made during the last two weeks. Cindy gave her eight yards of cloth she had purchased in Lijiang so she could make some traditional dresses. In the evening, we went out for dinner at an Italian Café and then walked through a six-story building, which was full of restaurants. Several offered all you can eat buffets with dancing and entertainment for less than $10.00. We went back to the apartment by taxi because it was pouring rain. Cindy and Nicole had a surprise early birthday party for me with gifts and a nice cake from a famous local bakery. At 10:30 PM I went to bed so I could wake up early for my flight to San Francisco tomorrow, Friday, December 6, 2002 – Novato, California I woke up and packed at 6:00 AM and had checked-out of the room by 6:30 AM. Cindy and Nicole would stay until noon and then Cindy plans to take the overnight train back to Beijing tonight. The taxi to the new airport took about an hour but I found the flight and checked-in quickly. We flew to Tokyo first, which took 2 ½ hours, and then I had a three-hour wait for my Northwest connection to San Francisco. I am scheduled to arrive in California at 7:30 AM Friday morning as we cross the International Date Line. I plan to spend the holidays in California and return to my travels on January 15, 2003. I have a return ticket to Shanghai on the 15th and an open ticket from Shanghai to London. I may visit New Zealand in late January. From London, I plan to buy a round trip ticket to Cape town, South Africa where I hope to spend two weeks before flying up to Kenya for my attempt to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro starting February 15, 2003 with Alpine Ascents. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
