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!

Macau (again!)

I made another trip to Macu at the end of July, but this time with Sabina and Kristen. My last trip to Macau with Amish, we spent more time in the casinos either walking around, watching shows, or on the casino floor. This time, we spent lots of time eating, checking out the casinos, and exploring the historic area of Macau.

  Exploring Senado Square in the historic area.

 We had dinner on night at a Portuguese place called Alfonso's where we ordered from a handwritten menu that changed every day. The food, wine, and cheese was excellent! Needless to say, we had a few other excellent meals too.

 We got some Portuguese egg tarts from a place called Margarets. You know a place is good when there are two lines out the door (one for ordering egg tarts and one for picking up your order). I think everyone there ate an average of 3 tarts a person. We ate 2 each. Yum yum!

  Ruins of St. Paul's Church - only the front wall remains.

SZ Botanical Gardens

A few friends from d.light (Sabina, Kristen, and Jason) and I decided to go check out the Botanical Gardens in Shenzhen one weekend at the end of July, where we found a variety of things. You can find lots of trees, plants, flowers, lakes,...

 dinosaurs...

 pagodas...

 old town houses...

Just another day in Shenzhen!

-dana

Macau!

It's great when friends from Stanford have to pass through Shenzhen for work. Amish was here at the beginning of July for work. Hey Chris, when are you coming back? We can when you come!

We decided to make a day trip to Macau, which was a Portuguese colony for almost 500 years. I think it's smaller than San Francisco.

 Here's Amish in a Cathedral! Cathedrals in China? Cool!

 This is one thing I really liked about Macau: feeling like I was walking through Europe. I found piazzas, water fountains, and cobbled streets in a place that looked like Hong Kong, though much less crowded!

 Here's the inside of the Venetian. Yes, it does look just like Vegas.

 St. Mark's Square (inside the Venetian).

At the end of the day, we got to see a Cirque du Soleil (Zaia) show for 25usd! I think if you're in Vegas, 25usd will buy you two drinks while you're watching a Cirque du Soleil show.

Visit from Sirena, Trip to Xi'an

I was really happy when my lil sister, Sirena, came to visit me in Shenzhen with a few of her friends at the end of June. After her friends left to go back home, she and I made a 4-day trip to Xi'an.

 Sirena and I biked around the city walls, which I hear is somewhere between 12-14km. I'm pretty sure I did 80% of the work...

 We did a day trip to Hua Shan which is 2hrs away from Xi'an by bus. The peaks are at ~2,000m.

 Yeah. The views were pretty awesome.

 Can't go to Xi'an without making friends with some Terracotta Warriors!

More pix on my Picasa page: http://picasaweb.google.com/danaung/XiAnTrip#

I had a lot of fun. Thanks for visiting, Sirena!