On Sunday Emilie and I returned from a two week trip to China. Though it was technically vacation, there wasn't much time for R&R as we tried to cover as much of the country as possible during our maiden voyage to the Middle Kingdom. And while we saw a ton, it was clear that we only scratched the surface during our visit.
The following is a brief list of the main cities / sights that we saw. I'll go into more detail and add pictures (I took ~1,500) over the coming weeks as I get caught up. That said, I'm still lagging on my early-October plan to get caught up on my already delinquent posts from September (most notably covering my parents' visit and the trip to Brittany for Emilie's sister's wedding), so perhaps I should set lower expectations.
Main Cities and Sights:
- Beijing: The Forbidden City / Tienanmen Square / Summer Palace / The Great Wall
- Pingyao: Ancient city walls / Shuanglin (Buddhist) Temple
- Xian: Great Mosque; Terracotta Army
- Chengdu: Panda Reserve / Leshan Giant Buddha / Mt. Emei Golden Summit
- Huanglong: scenic nature reserve / Tibetan villages
- Jiuzhaigou Valley: scenic nature reserve / Tibetan villages
- Shanghai: The Bund riverfront / acrobat show / tea houses
Otherwise, the highlights of the trip were definitely the food, the culture and the general experience of being absolutely helpless / clueless in a land nothing like anything remotely close to your comfort zone. That said, there were negatives as well, which I'll also cover -- e.g., the clearly visible societal and environmental consequences of the country's massive growth.
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