Other Travel Pix

I posted the rest of my travel pictures on picasa:
http://picasaweb.google.com/danaung/DadChinaTravel#

There are about 125 of them (out of the 2000 pictures that I took).

I think I'm just about recovered from my traveling (mostly from all the work that piled up).

Upcoming trips: Taiwan in mid November, California near Thanksgiving.

Chengdu (成都)

The highlight of our Chengdu trip was definitely the Pandas. Rather than add another picture of a market or old street, I'll leave this as the Panda post, because they were REALLY cute.

 
 
 
 

Huanglong (黄龙)

A 4-hr bus ride away was Huanglong, where we got to see more limestone deposits and blue water, but at a higher elevation. Since it was so high, it snowed!

 
 
 
 

Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟)

Jiuzhaigou was BEAUTIFUL. We got there at 7am and left the park at 7pm. Since it was fall, the leaves were turning red/orange/yellow and the water was an unbelievable shade of blue.

I'm thinking of making a trip during winter to see what it looks like covered in white!

 
 
 
 

Xi'an (西安)

We took a 4-hr train from Luoyang to Xi'an where we walked around the city and checked out the Terracotta Soldiers.

 Walking around the city walls.

 Walking around the Muslim Quarter.

 I think I spent as much time being amazed at the # of Chinese tourists as I did being amazed as the number of terracotta soldiers.

 

Luoyang (洛阳)

From Beijing, we flew to Luoyang (the plan was initially to take an 8hr train, but tickets were all sold out). Here, we got to visit the Shaolin Temple and the Longmen Caves.

 Lots of Wushu and martial arts.

 Thousands of caves and Buddha carvings.

 

 

Traveling with my Dad: Beijing!

My dad met with me at Beijing airport on 09.25 where we started a 3-week trip through China.

Beijing -> Luoyang -> Xi'an -> Jiuzhaigou -> Chengdu -> Shenzhen (home) -> Macau -> Hong Kong

We spent 6 days in Beijing right before the National Holiday and got to all the touristy spots. At the same time, we stayed in a buried in the Hutongs, so we got to see other parts of Beijing. I see why everyone loves Beijing: great food everywhere and lots of character!

  Tiananmen Square

  Forbidden City

  Olympic Stadium

  The Great Wall (Mu Tian Yu). It was awesome that there was almost no one there!

Weekend in Hengshan (衡山)

This last weekend, I got to hang out with a few Stanford friends at Hengshan, Hunan. One of them, Daniel, taught English at Henghan for a year through a Stanford program called VIA (Visitors in Asia), so we got to visit the school that he taught at and meet up with some this year's teachers (who were also Stanford grads!). We got off work on Friday, hopped on a train at 10pm and arrived at Hengshan at 6am the following day. To get back, we hopped on the 11pm train on Sunday night and arrived in Shenzhen at 7am so we could get to work on Monday. Fun fun!

We spent the weekend hiking up Hengshan, eating lots of Hunan food (not as spicy as I thought), and hanging out at the school Daniel used to teach at.

 Hengshan is one of the 5 Taoist mountains in China. I got to hike Huashan, another Taoist mountain, with my little sister a few months ago. I guess this means I have three more to go!

 
 I got to walk around some markets where you can buy dog meat, fresh frogs, and pig feet.

I think I'll probably take a break from traveling this weekend and next weekend, so I can plan for my big trip with my dad from Sept 25 - Oct 11. We're going from Beijing - Luoyang - Xi'an - Jiuzhaigou. It's going to be awesome!

Emoi - Staples meets Ikea

I found a really neat store the other day call Emoi (http://www.emoilife.com/en/index.php). Essentially, it's the Chinese version of Muji, which you probably haven't heard of since there's only one store in the US, and it's in NY.

It's pretty exciting. The only problem now is if I buy something, I'm not sure how I'm going to get it back to CA when I move back. Maybe I should worry about that later?

 

Trip to Jinggangshan (井冈山)

Jinggangshan is known as the birthplace of the Chinese Red Army, where Mao Ze Dong and the communist armies retreated to consolidate their forces.

I was there for 2 days for a business trip at the end of Aug, so I made sure to wake up really early (5am) so I could get some traveling in before I had to fly out of the airport at 3pm. It was well worth it. I must say, Mao picked a really nice place to retreat to.

 Lookout point at one of the bunkers.

 Five Dragon Pool, where cable cars will take you down and up. Since I didn't have much time, I hiked down and took the cable cars up.

 

 
I love waterfalls! Here, there were a total of 8 falls that each fed into the next.

Trip to Chaozhou (潮州)

Since my grandparents were born in Chaozhou or somewhere in that area, and since it's so close to here, I decided I should go visit (08.22-08.23)! Chaozhou was supposedly a 6 hr drive (thought I think it took almost 8). I don't have any relatives there, but a family friend still has family close to Chaozhou, so I went to go visit them.

We didn't do much besides eat and drink tea so I don't have a lot of pictures. the pace of living is much slower there - perhaps too slow for me! I think HK is too fast. SZ seems to be just right!

While we didn't do too much sight seeing, I did get to hang around Guangjimen at Chaozhou for a little while, so here are pix from that.

 
 

Beach Trip - Xiao Mei Sha (小梅沙)

I've heard about 2 beaches in Shenzhen, so Kristen and I decided to go check it out. One is the big beach (Da Mei Sha), which is free, and one is the small beach (Xiao Mei Sha), which costs money. I figured that if you have to pay to go, there should be fewer people. There were a TON of people. I'm glad that most Chinese people can't swim and if you make your way into the deeper end, it thins out a lot. :P

 Even though there were a lot of people, it didn't feel too crowded. It just felt like the place to hang out on a nice day. The

 Look at all the people! The water was pretty warm (maybe 22degC).

 I got to do some swimming and go to walk along the rocks. When one thinks of Shenzhen, one doesn't really picture this!

They have camping tents and some BBQ pits too, so a camping trip on the beach doesn't sound like a bad idea at all!

Painter's Village (大芬村）

Yesterday was another fun trip with Sabina and Kristen! (When I say yesterday, I actually mean yesterday. I think I am now all caught up on my blog posts! Sweet!)

Off to the Painter's Village, which was a half hr cab ride away. There are more than 5000 artists here making duplicate or original oil paintings. Want a Monet or Rembrandt? Want to blow up a family painting? Just come to the Painter's Village! I walked away with 2 sets of paintings (for a total of 7 paintings). One set goes in my room, one set will go back to Mountain View - Alex... hope you have more wall space!

 
 
 
 I'm blocking the set of 4 paintings I bought to put in my room. It's a set of trees in different colors (blue/green/red/yellow).

If I ever bought a house in Shenzhen, I'd come here to decorate it!