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SEPTEMBER 9, 2001: We left Detroit a hour late (4:30pm). The plane flew north across Saginaw, Sault Ste. Marie, then turned west across Canada to Alaska. We passed over the Alutian Islands, the Pacific Ocean landing in Tokyo where we had to change planes. The flight on to Shang Hai took longer than usual because the pilot had to fly around a typhoon off the coast of Japan. It never got dark that night and we could see a lot of snow capped mountains. SEPTEMBER 10, 2001: We landed in Shang Hai about 10:30pm (their time, they are 12 hours ahead of EST) at a large, new, clean airport where we were met by our tour guide, Bi Weili. There were 13 in the group (1), 4 of them had gotten in earlier in the day and one man would not join us until tomorrow. It was another hour by bus to our hotel. So by the time we got our luggage and got to bed it was quite late. September 11, 2001; The nexr morning out the window of our room on the 19th floor we could see people exercising. Some were shooting baskets, some were on treadmills, stationary bikes, stair-steppers. Also there were people doing Tai Qi. This city of Shang Hai has a population of 13 million riding 7 million bicyles. We saw very few private cars here, mostly buses, taxis and commerical vehicles. The people ride the bicyles all year round, the average winter temperature is 40 degrees. (2) We left the hotel after breakfast for a tour around the city. We went to a shop where they make and sell pearl jewelery. We saw a film on how they make the fresh water clams develope pearls. The pearls are of different sizes and are in colors of pink, salmon, while, and black. Black being the most expensive. We went to a shop where they make silk carpets. It takes one woman a year and a half to make a carpet 5 X 7 ft. and it cost $3,800. From the silk carpets we went to a store that made silk comforters. Istead of the comforters being filled with down or feathers, these comforters were filled with silk and with a silk cover. The regular size was about $40.00 USD, the queen size was about $50.00 and the king was about $60.00. One man and his wife brought 4 of them for Christmas gifts for their family. The local guide had our tour guide take them to be mailed. The comforters were shipped by boat and it would take a month to get to the USA. The place where they bought them would have shipped them but it would have cost more. We were told by our guides (3)that the average working class people live in the poured cement building that we saw all over the city, about 7-10 stories. The government builds these building (4)and then can be bought by the people, starting at $30,000. Shang Hai plus all the cities that we visited have signs on their stores in Chinese and in English. They have MacDonald's and KFC. We saw a street that is called " the walking street", the shoppers can walk from store to store but there isn't any bikes or cars allowed. We went to a mall, a museum, and the Jade Budda Temple. The temple has a large green jade budda that was carved out of one single piece of jade. Another budda was carved out of white jade and this one was called the "reclining budda." We saw Shang Hai's TV tower, the 3rd tallest in the world. We stopped at a walk by the river. We went to the Children's Palace...these are schools all over China that are available to children that want to learn how to play the piano, violin, learn how to dance (ballet), sing (opera), paint, and do caligraphy. They attend this school once a week after they go to their regular schools. That night we went to a very good and amazing acrobatic show. We got back to the hotel that night about 9:00pm and turned the CNN to see the news and saw that the first jet had hit the World Trade Center, a few minutes later saw the other jet crashed into the building. |
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September 12, 2001 We took a train from Shang Hai to Wuxi. As we traveled through the country side we saw a different side of China..not like the modern city. The area is called "the land of fish and rice". A lot of man made ponds for raising fish and rice. The farmers rent the land from the government. In this area we saw some water buffalos. Wuxi is a smaller city but still a million people. The people are riding small motorcyles and scooters but now the government won't allow anymore to be licensed because of the pollution problem. (6) We went to a Silk Spinning factory and watched some women roll the silk thread onto spools. We also visited a shop that made clay pottery. There is a new part of this city and there is a old part of this city that they are going to keep and not distirb it. We visited a family that lives in the old section. They have offered these people new places to live but they want to stay where they are. The houses are all connected to together on the Grand Canal. The old man and his wife have a small house. As you walk into the house on your right there is a wringer washing machine and refrigerator, on the left two gas burner plates for cooking. The floors were bare cement. They have a couch and a table. There was 2 bedrooms in the back. The beds have just bamboo mats on the wooden beds. There was no running water and no bathroom. The brick side walk along the canal is used for cooking in good weather and house plants. These couple take care of their grandchild while the parents work. Sometimes taking care of the child for days. When we left their house everyone gave the man some money and thanked him for allowing us to visit. September 13, 2001: This day we went from Wuxi to Suzhou by boat on the Grand Canal. (5) Suzhou is called "the Venice of the east". We visited some beautiful gardens, the Pan Man City Gate (2,500 yrs old), the North Temple Pagoda and a place where they do silk embroidery. The embroidery pieces take a long time to do...in a picture of a cat, the cat's eye has 18 different colors. Some of the pieces have the picture on both sides. We also went for a ricksaw ride powered by a man on a bicyle. They make fun of the "American belly". They say the pulling one American is like pulling 2 Chinese. Some of the couples had to be broken up and ride with a smaller person. The man that pulled us was a small guy and he had trouble getting started or going over a bridge but once he got going he was passing other ricksaws. We had a policeman riding beside us on a bicyle. Most of the time we were on side streets but we did have to cross traffic. The ricksaw drivers would just pull out into traffic and the traffic would stop. We were taken to a market and we shopped for about 45 minutes. A busy place with vendors set up, taxi's and peddlers (7), we can hardly walk down the street. When we got back in the ricksaw we had a "ricksaw traffic jam". In the evening we went to a opera at a garden. SEPTEMBER 14, 2001 From Suztou we went back to Shang Hai by bus. Then we flew to Wuhan where we will get on the cruise ship, Victoria 1. |
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(1) THE TOUR GROUP: Besides Ron and I there were 2 other couples from Michigan, the upper peninsula. One family of four, a brother and a sister, the brother's wife and the sister's daughter from MA. A couple from Nantucket, and a single guy from CA. (2)THE TRAFFIC: Along both sides of the traffic lanes there are bicyles lanes with hundreds of bicyles. The bikes look old and rusty. We saw bicycle parking lots with so many bikes that we were unable to count them. The Chinese drivers are the best, most patient drivers that I have ever seen. There are very few traffic lights and no stop or yield signs. They just merge into traffic. People turn in front of the traffic and the traffic just stops. We didn't see any accidents while we were in China....even the big cities. We found it hard to walk across the street...most of the time our guide was with us and he just walked out into traffic until the they stopped and let him cross.
(3)OUR TOUR GUIDE AND LOCAL GUIDES: We had our tour guide and then every day we had a local tour guide for every city the we went into. Some of them were men and some were women. Of course they all had Chinese names but they also had American names that we could call them. They would tell us all about their cities. The best local guide was a man named Jack. Very funny, told us jokes and when we went to a museum he was very knowledgeable and made it very interesting. He wanted us all in a group and everyone listened when he spoke. On the cruise boat we had a river guide whose name was Simon that told us all about the area and the history which was very interesting. THE MEALS: All the meals were included. Our breakfast was always a buffet and was an American breakfast. A couple of times our lunch or dinner was served buffet style but most of the time it was family style and always Chinese. The group of 13....14 with our tour guide sat at 2 big round tables with a large "lazy susan" in the middle with our plates, cups, soup bowls which were very small around the outside. Our plates were the size of saucers. We had the same thing all the time that we were in China. First we were served 4 cold dishes...like fish, cabbage, nuts, cheese. We always had a bowl of rice and watery soup. We would have pork, beef with green peppers, sweet and sour fish( with bones in it) chicken with peanuts ( it liked that), green beans with seseame oil, bokhoy in seseame oil, seaweed. hot cabbage in seseame oil, little rice cakes in sweet and sour sauce, orange fish. Some of the dishes were hot and spicy. For dessert we always had watermelon, sometimes pears, or canalope. Sometimes we also had cookies or cake. The beverages that we were served were tea, pop or 2 bottles of beer for each table. (4) THE BUILDINGS: There are a lot of new building in China. They are replacing the old apartment buildings. The big cities that we visited have new, tall, beautifully designed buildings. Many of the old buildings are thousands to years old. They were built without any nails. The old building have the edges of roofs curved up so the evil spirits that slide down the roofs would be send back up into space instead of coming down to earth. When entering an old building you have to step up and over the treshold so the evil spirits could not enter these building since the spirits can only travel in a straight line. The doorway always faced the south and two doorways could not be across from one another so the spirits couldn't go from one building to the next. These old buildings have small figures on the edges of these sweep up edges of the roofs. The more important the building the more figures. Nine of these figures was good luck, the number 9 is a lucky number. They didn't put 10 figures because that is a number that means completeness. In front of a lot of these buildings there is 2 lions, a male and a female. You can tell the difference between the 2 lions because the female has her paw on a cub and the male has his paw on a ball, signifing power ( the world). (5)THE GRAND CANAL This canal is the longest, oldest, man made canal in the world. It goes from Shang Hai to Beijing, which is a 1,000 miles. Some of the canal is not in use today but the part that we saw was a very busy waterway (like a water expressway) with boats and barges hauling steel, bricks, sand, clothes, scrap metal, coal and etc. These boats have 3 to 5 engines, there is a cabin where they live. You can see the people on the boats doing washing, hanging their clothes up to dry, washing in the river, and cooking. They carry their bikes with them. We even saw house plants on the cabin of the boats or on a shelf. Some of the barges are hooked together and pushed by a boat. BIRDS, CATS AND DOGS One thing that I noticed right away was that there wasn't any birds in the cities. We did see birds and hear birds in the trees on our cruise up the Yangtze River. The birds live in the caves in the gorges. You don't see very many dogs or cats, just a few as pets. |
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