we're home!

We made it! We are back in Tianjin. We walked into our neglected (and incredibly dusty) apartment about 45 minutes ago. First task: change into some clothes that aren't one of the three outfits I've been wearing for the past four weeks. Second task: order pizza. Third task: get online and let you all know we've made it back.

Fourth task is going to be kind of a multi-step process: 1.) eat the pizza we ordered, 2.) watch a DVD, and 3.) completely veg out on the couch before falling into an exhausted sleep in our very own bed. Woo-hoo!

The plan is to post some trip photos and stories and stuff tomorrow (probably while doing laundry), so tune in for more fun and excitement really soon!

still alive in Xi'an

Just wanted to let you, my faithful readers, know that we are still alive and still making our way through China. Still. We are in Xi'an, home of the terra-cotta warriors, right now. Thankfully, this is our last stop before heading home the day after tomorrow. I have to say I am really ready to get home and stay put for a little while. All this traveling has worn me out!

I've pretty much given up on really posting photos and things from our trip until we get home. It's not that it's impossible, but just difficult and time-consuming while on the road. But don't worry--I've got plans for tons of posts (with tons of pictures) to catch you up on our great adventures once we get back home again. We went to see the terra-cotta warrior museum today (all day. . . seriously . . . all day), and got some great pictures of the archaeological digs I can't wait to post.

More on that, and all our adventures, very, very soon.

Ben fits in with the locals (and I helped)

it's picture time: Hangzhou

I think I'm actually going to be able to post some pictures, thanks to the wonders of Starbucks and its amazing free wi-fi. You never know how much you should appreciate Starbucks until you've been wandering through China for two weeks with terrible internet quality the whole time.

Just to fill in you moms out there (you know who you are): we're in Chongqing, a big city on the Yangzi river. This is our last day in town--we leave for Chengdu tomorrow afternoon--just a short 5 hour train ride away. I've been under the weather since before we left Guilin, so Ben convinced me to take it easy today, sleep in, rest, chill out at Starbucks for a day. I have to say, it's been a wonderful respite.

Here is a handful or two of shots from Hangzhou. I'll post some from Guilin and Chongqing in separate posts.


View across West Lake, Hangzhou


Goldfish pond near West Lake


Me at the top of Leifeng Pagoda


Ben rides the escalator to enlightenment


Candles in a Buddhist temple


Red lanterns at the Buddhist temple


Happy New Year! (now can I go inside, please?)

trip update: Guilin

I meant to post this a couple days ago, but then I put it off because I couldn't get my photos to load on our crappy internet connection, but I thought I could make it work if I kept trying. I was wrong, and now we're not in Guilin anymore, but it's late and it's been a long day, so I'll have to tell you about Chongqing and post some photos another day. In the meantime . . .

I know my posts have been few and far between since we've been on this trip. I really meant to get some pictures up while we've been here in Guilin, but the internet connection here has left much to be desired. It seems to be a big problem--the connections at the hostels are too slow for me to get many pictures up in any kind of timely fashion. Maybe I'm just taking too many pictures--I think I have something like 700 so far. I'll try to include more travel stories when we get back to Tianjin, or someplace with a good reliable internet service.

Here's a short update, especially to put our mom's hearts at ease: we are in Guilin, safe and relatively healthy (I seem to have caught a cold somewhere along the way--probably when that kid on the last train we were on kept staring at us and coughing right in our faces without covering his mouth). Guilin is beautiful. It is known as one of the most famous scenic spots in China, with mountains, lakes, and caves everywhere--it was one of the earliest tourist spots in China, attracting tourists as far back as the Sui dynasty (581-618 AD). Yesterday we tried to take a count of how many mountains we've climbed in the three (now four) days we'd been here, and we honestly couldn't remember. Maybe six? Of course, they're kind of short mountains--actually, really weird, jutting mountains, that rise abruptly out of the city landscape--kind of like enormous rocks with staircases. My thighs have had some serious stairmaster-type workouts since we've been here. The last couple of days, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous and spring-like. I didn't even need a jacket yesterday, much less the long underwear I've been wearing for the past couple of months.

We leave tomorrow, February 1, for our next stop: Chongqing. It's north a bit, so I have a feeling it's going to be much colder than it has been here.

Unfortunately, I can't post any photos right now, due to unreliable internet connections. Once we're back in the land of reliable internet, I'm planning to create a photobucket account so, if you're interested, you can see all the pictures from our trip. More info about that soon . . . .

happy new year!

Tomorrow is the first day of the Chinese New Year. As I type, the fireworks are booming and echoing across Hangzhou. They are sometimes so loud, they sound as if they are being set off right outside our window. In fact, just a few minutes ago, they were being set off right outside our window. It was a bit terrifying--the hostel staff was lighting them right next to the building, and right under a tree. They didn't seem to be paying much attention to how close anyone was standing, or which direction things were shooting. I had visions of everything I'd brought with me (which, admittedly, wasn't much) going up in flames. Now the scents of coal smoke, new year popcorn, and gunpowder are wafting through the entire building.

We spent our New Year's eve bicycling through the West Lake area of Hangzhou. This is a beautiful city, kind of a resort town, to tell the truth, known for it's beautiful lakeside scenery and gardens, as well as its preserved historical sites and artifacts. We climbed to the top of a pagoda this afternoon, visited beautiful gardens, and cycled down lakeside paths. If the chain hadn't been constantly falling off the back gear of my bike the whole way, it would have been an idyllic day.

When we came back to the hostel, the staff was preparing a New Year celebration. We all made dumplings together, then ate them, as well as the plates of oranges, nuts, seeds, candies and chocolates the staff brought out to us. And then there was popcorn. And more popcorn. Then fireworks and more popcorn.

We've had no problems at all getting tickets to anywhere we want to go, despite all the hype about how difficult travel is during Chinese New Year. Tomorrow we plan to take a short day-trip to a nearby town called Wuzhen. It's kind of like the Chinese version of historic Dodge City, set up to recapture a particular time in history. We're just hoping everything won't be closed down due to new year celebrations. Then on Tuesday we leave for a 21-hour long train ride to Guilin. It will be a good chance to catch up on some much-needed rest, I hope.

I tried for over an hour to post some pictures of our day up here, but no luck. Grrr. . . . I'll try to get some up soon.

In the meantime: Good luck and good health to you all this new year! Xin nian kuaile!

we're in Hangzhou

So, Sally alerted me to the fact that maybe I didn't mention this before: Ben and I are traveling with a classmate of mine, Nathan. At our Shanghai hostel, we all shared a room. So, that's why there was a sleeping Nathan in our room in my last post. That's also why you might see some pictures with a strange American lurking around in them. Don't worry--he's with us.

We got to Hangzhou last night, and I can already tell I'm gonna like this place. Our hostel is right on the main attraction in town: West Lake. Our plan is to rent some bikes today and spend the morning biking around the lake. It will be fun, if the cold doesn't kill us. A cold front came in on Friday, which made it almost unbearable to be out and about on Friday and Saturday. I'm hoping for a bit of a warm-up today.

I've taken over 300 photos in the past week, so I obviously can't share all of them, but here are a few Shanghai highlights.


At Yuyuan Garden, in Old Town, Shanghai


Hot noodles!


On the Huangpu River Cruise


Monks at Jingan Temple


Stone lions guarding the entrance to the Shanghai Museum