Summer travel

So summer is upon us and many foreigners in China are wondering, "what do I do now?" Here I have decided to post some recommendations for those who are living in various regions and may want to travel around China for a bit this summer before returning home. This is the first installment. In each posting, I will focus on one or two cities or regions. I have divided the categories by region, distance, and commuting options.

I'll start with Central China since that is where I am. These travel times are calculated from Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province.

Nearby:

For those who may not want to travel too much this summer, but still want to get out of the city there are several options.

1. Travel to Fujian Province
--2-3 hours by high speed train

*Places to go in the city:

--West Lake (park and traditional house with garden)--free
--Hualin Monastery (monastery, Hualin Lu, open for tours)--3RMB
--Pingshan Park (park, monkey park, Fufei S. Road)--free
--Yu Hill (pagoda, opera performances, Daoist temple)--free
--Gu Shan and Xi Chan Monastery grounds (monastery, vegetarian restaurant and shopping)--20RMB

*Places to go outside the city:

--Qingyun Shan Waterfall Park (park, scenic area, hiking)
--Qingyun Mtn. Royal Hot Spring Hotel (hotel, hot springs, mineral baths)--1200+ RMB/night

For more information about Qingyun Shan travel, visit http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g297405-d1440226/Fuzhou:China:Qingyun.Mountain.html

Clean Air, Quiet City, and the Ability to Take a Deep Breath Part 2

In the morning, we were greeted with the sight of rain and grey skies, but the air was clean. I was able to draw a deep breath without inhaling a lungful of exhaust or smog. In Wenzhou, most mornings don't have a sunrise. If you can see the sun, it is through a brownish haze. In Fuzhou, even though the skies were dark and it was raining, one could not mistake the coming of day. In fact, the only thing that was remotely like Wenzhou was the brown river. The rain upriver causes the river in Fuzhou to turn brown due to run-off.

Merged picture of the bridge and the river from the hotel.

Street Sweeper on a rainy day in Fuzhou.

After a quick breakfast of rice porrige, fruit, and some random sources of protein, we all leaded the busses again and set out in the rain for Fuzhou Botanical Garden. 

The Botanic Garden is one of the places that I could have missed. It is a park where rare and native trees and plants are grown and protected, but unless you are interested in the history of the gymnosperm and can read Chinese, it is a rather boring place. The few bright spots included the huge Koi lake where thousands of Koi live, a huge old tree, the local temple, and the small children's amusement park across the road from the Botanical Gardens.

Once again, us four laowai ditched the main group to go our own way and wander through the park. I can imagine just how annoyed the guides were with us, but oh well, we were bored and tired of listening to the girl with the microphone speaking in a language that most of us couldn't understand. So we wandered off and found a small temple complex. The artwork and statues were far more interesting to us than a stand of Cypress trees or clusters of the world's tallest grass (bamboo). After visiting the temple, we headed to the far end of the park and saw a small amusement park. There the other three played a ring-toss game while I watched and took pictures. Again, far more interesting and much more fun than some rain-soaked trees.

Old tree

Koi pond

Out for a walk

Dragon roof

Buddha

Guardian statue
 
 
 
 

Another Buddha altar

 

Goddess of Mercy

After visiting the amusement park, we realized that the departure time was getting close so we started walking back to the other side of the compound, but we didn't realize how far we had come until we had 7 minutes left. Luckily we managed to hail one of the park tour taxis and the lady took us back to the east gate. We got back on time, before most of the other people in fact even though we had less than 1 minute remaining of our allotted time. While we waited for the rest of the group to return, we wandered around the food and gift stalls. I bought some pineapple and icecream. both of which were incredibly sweet. About ten minutes later, the rest of the group returned and we headed to West Lake.

West Lake is a lake in Fuzhou that has a park surrounding it not unlike Blue Lake in Oregon. It also has an old house and traditional garden that you can wander through. When we were there, there was a karaoke show going on in one of the pergolas. Although some of the singers had good voices, imagine traditional Chinese music done karaoke style; it's not easy on the ears. Other than that however, the lake had lots of trees, water and of course the garden. It would have been a beautiful place to visit if not for the rain. I would like to wander around the gardens when the sun is out. This time, Aaron (one of the guides) decided to stay with us the whole time. I can't imagine why...Unfortunately, we were pressed for time, so the stop at the lake was not a long one. After lunch at an overcrowded restaurant, we were taken to the final stop on our weekend journey--Old Street.

Old Street is a combination of preserved and reconstructed old buildings in Fuzhou. It is a relatively new attraction in the city as many of the buildings are still undergoing renovations. The side streets are also rather barren as of this point in time, but eventually the whole neighborhood will be one large "Historic Downtown" complete with shopping, restaurants, and numerous other businesses. Right now, it is a place with many interesting Ming and Ching style buildings and old houses-turned-shops that is fast becoming a tourist trap. The buildings are beautiful however and many of the smaller gift shops offer some unique small gifts that are easy to pack or send to relatives. I bought some matchbooks with Chairman Mao and Che Gueverra on them. I was tempted to buy some Obama ones, but those only came in a set of 28 and cost too much for matchbooks. Other people bought dolls, figurines, statues, and local pieces of art that were a little on the pricey side. One of my biggest discoveries actually took place just off Old Street.

 

Old Street

Bronze sculpture of writing

Ming/Ching Dynasty House

Ching Dynasty building

Bronze sculpture of silk screening

Really expensive wood statues

Bystanders on Old Street

After wandering around Old Street for a while, I returned to the busses with about 15 minutes remaining on our schedule. While I was standing there about to be bored, I saw a group of tourists dressed in nice clothes being led by a guide into what looked like another old building so I decided to follow them. What I found was an old private residence that was open to the public. Incidentally, this house was involved in the drug wars of the 19th century and part of the property is now an office for China's version of the DEA. It was a beautiful house, and even though  the weather was still crappy I managed to get some decent pictures of the place. I wandered through corridors and hallways snapping photos of random sights; a courtyard, a statue, a Persian-style door, a bigger courtyard, a pond...Sadly I was not able to explore the whole house because I ran out of time. If I am ever back in Fuzhou, I plan on visiting both Old Street and this place again.

Entrance gallery

Small courtyard and pond

Cannons (from the 19th century Opium Wars)

Large courtyard and pond

 

Memorial plaques

Persian-style door

Unfortunately our rather busy, but interesting weekend had to end and before long we were all on the high-speed train back to Wenzhou. We arrived in Wenzhou to the fanfare of cars and smog and rain, but for at least a few hourse we were able to admire a clean city with clean air and take a big, deep, breath.

Clean Air, Quiet City, and the Ability to Take a Deep Breath

Last weekend, everyone in my office had the opportunity to go to Fujian Province as part of a group tour. We all looked forward to it if only because it was a chance to see somewhere that wasn't Wenzhou. I was interested in going only because it was my first time out of Zhejiang Province. We went to several places, but ultimately the tour was kind of boring mainly because we were always rushing from one place to another. The tour company tried to fit three or four days worth of activities into 38 hours. However it was still a chance to get out and see another part of China. I just wish it could have lasted a little longer or that we had not had to visit all of the places we went to.

The first place we went was of course the train station in Wenzhou. The new high-speed train will take you from Wenzhou to Fuzhou in just a few hours. The train ride was surprisingly nice and quiet. It was not crowded and provided a good opportunity to catch up on reading or sleep that was interrupted only by the occasional announcement that the next stop was some village or city. Almost as soon as we got out of the immediate area around Wenzhou, we noticed that the air pollution decreased significantly, even if the water still looked horrible. This was the first clue that anywhere other than Wenzhou might actually be clean. When we arrived in Fuzhou, the first thing we had to do was find our tour guides, a man whose English name was Aaron and a girl whose name I never knew, and figure out where the buses were. Once we got on the buses, the grand adventure began.

After stopping for lunch in Linglu, the first stop on the tour was Qingyun Mountain Scenery Area. It is 76 km outside of Fuzhou near the town of Linglu in Yongtai county. The introductory sign was about the only legible English-language sign in the whole park. All of the other "bi-lingual" signs had such poor translation, grammar, and spelling as to make them virtually illegible. These signs became a source of great amusement for us four native English speakers on the trip. However, that being said, there were many wonderful scenic spots at this park. The four laowai on the trip (me + 3 others) were constantly climbing over rocks and stopping to take a look at some interesting piece of scenery to the point that the rest of the group got somewhat ahead of us and the guide, Aaron, was sent back to find us. He stayed with us for the rest of our climb up up the mountain because it might look bad if the four laowai got lost.

Cuvay, legislatu e, fear old?

Top Left: One of many smaller waterfalls at the park. Top Right: The big waterfall at the end of the path up the mountain. Bottom: A small bridge across a small waterfall.

One thing that I will always remember about this park (other than the funny signs) is how clear, clean, and amazingly blue the water was. There is only one other place I have ever been where I have seen water of this color and that was in the Caribbean Ocean off the coast of Belize. I have never seen it in a mountain stream or river.

After wandering around for the better part of three hours, we went to the second stop on our journey--a wonderful hot spring hotel. This was the most relaxing part of our entire trip. Unfortunately, we were only able to spend a couple of hours there. I could have spent the whole day just going from mineral bath to tea soak to whirlpool and back. This hotel is very expensive to stay in. The cheap room will run about 1300 yuan per night, but people can go there just for the baths as we did. Now, for those who are thinking this sounds cool, It took us two hours by bus to get to the town of Linglu from Fuzhou. Not only that, but we could not drive the bus right up to the hotel because the road is only wide enough for cars, not busses, to pass so traffic jams are common. We ended up having to walk with all of our stuff the last 2.5 km or so from Linglu to the hotel.

After spending a couple of hours soaking in warm water, we went to dinner at the same place we ate lunch in Linglu. Once again we had to walk it. Not so fun after relaxing for a couple of hours in warm water, but the food was good and we got to eat out under what would have been stars if not for the rain clouds. After a good dinner, we got back on the bus for the two hour trip back to Fuzhou and our hotel. By the time we got to our hotel, almost everyone on the trip was ready to crash, but the four of us who were not Chinese decided to wander around for a while and see the city at night. 

 

Looking out across the river from out hotel at a really expensive shopping place.

One of the bigger bridges in the city.

Night scene.

One of the first things we noticed about the city was how quiet it seemed at night. In Wenzhou a street like the one above would be filled with street carts and vendors. Cars would be moving along to the ever-present sound of horns and people would still be out and about. In Fuzhou, the scene is much quieter and the streets are much cleaner. Even during the day there are few street carts and the drivers are infinitely more polite than in Wenzhou. It was a nice contrast from the bustle of daily life in the city of Wenzhou. After wandering around for a bit and visiting the American embassy (aka McDonalds), we all headed back to our hotel for good night's rest.

To be continued...