Trip to China!!

We visited China in Fall this year for a conference. We were pretty excited about this trip but couldn't plan much for it in advance because of our schedule and classes. We took a direct United airlines flight from DC to Beijing. It was a 13 hour flight. We pretty much slept most of the time on the flight. The meals were not that great which was anyways expected from a US airline. We landed in Beijing in the afternoon. The airport is pretty impressive, especially the new international terminal that is a dragon-shaped building. We took a taxi to our hotel (Friendship hotel). The taxi driver couldn't speak or understand English. Luckily, we had our hotel name written in Chinese script to show to the driver. It was a 45 minute drive. The skies were pretty hazy and smoky that day, though they were much clearer on the remaining days of our stay. Later, a tour guide told us that due to the paralympics, the number of vehicles on roads were being controlled. Only even numbered vehicles were allowed on one day and only odd numbered vehicles on the next day in order to control the traffic and pollution. That was a pretty impressive way to handle the situation. On our way we got to a glimpse of the Birds Nest. The modern buildings in Beijing were absolutely amazing and beautiful. We reached the hotel and checked into our room. Thankfully, some of the staff at the reception were able to speak English. After freshening up, we took a tour of the hotel which is garden style hotel and quite spread out on a huge area. We walked around the various buildings, sports complex, shopping, centers and restaurants. This hotel is a historic and old one and is called the Friendship hotel as a mark of the friendship between Russia and China. The entire setup is architecturally very rich. I have attached a picture below. The hotel has 5-6 different buildings with a wide range of rooms starting from 5-star to 3-star levels. We stayed in the main building (Bldg. 1) and got exceptionally good service. We took it easy that night, got dinner from a shopping mall right across the road.


Friendship Hotel



On Days 1 & 2 in Beijing, we were busy all day at the conference. We had lunches at the Friendship Palace restaurant. It was a buffet lunch and had very limited vegetarian options. But we were glad to find something. In the evenings, we used to venture out to the Shopping malls around the hotel. We also managed to find an Indian restaurant close to the hotel. It was a short taxi ride. The best part about China is the inexpensive taxi rides. Of course the challenge is to communicate with the driver. The hotel staff used to write our destination name in Chinese for us to show to the driver.

On Day 3 we decided to go on a guided tour. We woke up early, had breakfast and were ready at 7:30am to meet our tour guide in the lobby. The tour guide picked a few more tourists (an Australian family, an Irish guy, and a Singaporean girl) and by around 8:30 am we started our tour in a mini-bus with about 8 of us. We first drove to Ming Tombs which was about 45 min. drive from Beijing. We got to see the statue of Chang Ling and went around the area of his tomb which was under a hill and not accessible. I am glad we were with a tour guide and at least got some idea of what we were seeing. Next we went to a Jade carving factory, where we were shown how to differentiate between a real jade and a fake one. We then spent some time in a showroom with lot of jewelery and different show pieces made of jades. Our next stop was the most awaited "Great Wall". We walked up the Great Wall to one of the watch towers and got to see some spectacular views from there. On our way down, back to the tour bus, we did some souvenir shopping. Then we had lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant with a moving-center round table. Different type of food was placed on the table and everyone picked from the moving round table. After that we drove back to Beijing. It was almost 4pm. Our next stop was a tea house to experience a tea ceremony. We got to taste different kinds of tea and of course the main objective was marketing their products. After that we passed by the Birds Nest (Olympics stadium) and Water Cube and got some pictures there. We could not go inside as tours had not started at that time. After the long day we were pretty tired especially due to the hike on the Great Wall.


Great Wall


Bird's Nest (Olympics Stadium)

On day 4 we had planned for another guided tour of downtown Beijing. We again woke up early and went to have breakfast. Breakfast at Friendship hotel was our favorite activity. The breakfast buffet was extensive with a wide variety of items including soups and fried rice. That was one place where we there were numerous vegetarian items. The staff was extremely friendly and courteous. We thoroughly enjoyed having breakfast over there everyday. We liked it so much that we would assign an hour for it in the morning. Our tour guide called us when we were having breakfast to let us know that it was raining and we better get our umbrellas. We were unaware of this until she informed us. We rushed back to our room, grabbed our umbrella and met the tour guide in the lobby. Again, after picking all the tourists, our tour started at the famous "Forbidden City" which is the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was a huge palace and the guide took us through the important buildings and briefed us on some of the history. This palace was called the Forbidden City as only members of the royal family were allowed inside and any one else who dared to enter the Forbidden City was killed. We entered the Forbidden City from the rear entrance and exited from the front entrance into Tiananmen Square which is supposedly the largest square in the world. There we got a pic with General Mao's picture. We walked around the square which was beautifully decorated. The guide told us a few things about the square though we didn't get into its controversial history. Next stop was a health research center, which was again one of those marketing stops to sell some herbal medicines. We got a free consultation with a Chinese doctor at the center who examined our hands and prescribed some herbal medicines for better health. Next, we visited the "Temple of Heaven". Only after seeing this temple, I realized that the picture we see most of the times on Chinese restaurant pamphlets here in US is the temple of heaven. We went around this gorgeous temple and its museum. The gardens around this temple had a number of old Chinese people exercising, playing, chatting, singing, and dancing. It was a very nice and peaceful atmosphere. We saw a few of them playing a game with something that looked like a shuttle cock but slightly bigger. They were hitting it with their legs and seemed to enjoy it. We then had lunch and drove to the Summer Palace. We had to take a boat over a man-made lake to reach the Summer Palace which was built for the lady empress during the Qing dynasty. The palace is on a hill beside the beautiful lake. We got back to the hotel in the evening and got ready for the conference banquet - a Peking Duck dinner at one of the famous restaurants in Beijing. Although we didn't eat the duck, we enjoyed the restaurant. That night after dinner, the conference organizers had our bus stop at the Birds Nest. We got a slightly closer view of it at night, still from behind the fence.

Temple of Heaven


Summer Palace

We spent day 5 at the conference. I had to make my presentation in the afternoon. That evening some friends from the conference gathered together and we decided to go shopping. A local Chinese student was with us and he took us on a local bus to a nearby electronics shopping mall. The bus ride was amazingly cheap, just 1 yen. The difficult part about shopping in China is that one has to be an expert at bargaining. We looked at electronics for a while. Then we decided to go to the famous Wangfu Jing shopping area. This place is famous for its shops and street food. We got to see all kinds of street food, including fried sea horses. We did some souvenir shopping and applied all our bargaining skills there. We lost track of time as we were shopping and were there until after 10pm. We couldn't get a taxi at that time at a normal fare. There were 8 of us. We decided to take a bus instead which would take us half the way. The bus broke down after a little bit. We had to get off and change the bus again. We finally reached our hotel around midnight and just crashed.

On day 6 we started our day with our favorite breakfast. This was our last day in Beijing. We spent quite some time at breakfast and bid farewell to all the friends we had made there. We attended the closing at the conference. The hotel arranged a taxi for us to go to the airport. We were going to Shanghai. We managed to get air tickets after a great deal of ordeal. We wanted to take a train to Shanghai, tried to buy tickets from one of the booths close to our hotel. No one could speak English there. Luckily we met a Chinese girl who could speak English and eager to help us. With her help we found that all trains were sold out. We came back to the hotel and went to the travel desk for air tickets. Again after great deal of effort, we managed to explain to them what we needed. We used a Chinese-English dictionary that we were carrying. So here we were on day 6, ready to fly to Shanghai. On our way to the airport, we made one final stop in Beijing. It was the Lama temple. We bought audio guides at the entrance of the temple and spent an hour viewing the beautiful architecture of the temple and the beautiful Buddha statues. There was one huge wooden statue made out of one tree and holds a Guinness record. We reached the airport, checked in, looked for food. We found a subway where we got a couple of sandwiches and then we boarded our plane. We looked at the dragon shaped terminal as the plane took off and we bid farewell to Beijing. We reached Shanghai and took a taxi to Renaissance Yangtze Hotel. It was a short 20 min drive through Shanghai traffic. We were awestruck at the high rises in Shanghai. We felt we were transported to NewYorkCity or an even better place than NYC. We reached the hotel and saw they were celebrating the OktoberFest. We didn't join in as both of us don't enjoy beer. We checked into our room on the 26th floor. We kept gazing out of our window at the beautiful Shanghai skyline. That night we toured the hotel and its facilities. The hotel staff suggested a Punjabi Indian restaurant close by. We went there for a spicy and hot dinner. We strolled the shops in the area after dinner.

Lama Temple


Beijing International Airport

On day 7, after breakfast, we again met our tour guide in the lobby who was going to take us on a concise tour of Shanghai. We picked the remaining tourists that included an old Chilean couple, an old Spanish couple, a Malaysian girl, and an Indian guy. We started our tour with the YuYuan gardens. These gardens was a happy home built by a king to please his parents. We strolled this beautiful garden home and then the shops outside the gardens. Next, we went to the famous "Bund" which separates the new Shanghai from old Shanghai. We got to see the stunning skyline of the new Shanghai which was built from scratch in the last 10-20 years. There were people selling fake rolex watches and handbags on the Bund. After a short stroll on the Bund, we visited a Pearl factory. We were shown how to differentiate between fake and real pearls. We got to see their showrooms with beautiful jewelery and pearl creams were sold. Next we had lunch at restaurant "Ginger". After lunch we spent an hour at the Shanghai Museum at the People's Square. The People's square was beautifully decorated, had a nice fountain in the center, and was surrounded by architecturally beautiful and futuristic buildings. Next we visited the Jade buddha temple that had a Buddha statue made completely of Jade and another made completely of marble. This temple felt completely divine. They also had a tea house. We participated in the tea ceremony and tasted different kinds of tea. Our last stop was another Jade factory with a huge shopping center. They had huge jade Pishu's (Chinese dragon - supposed to bring fortune). That night we had dinner and went out shopping (saw some fake Gucci/Versace handbags).

YuYuan Gardens


Shanghai skyline from the Bund

Day 8 was the last day of our China trip. We were tired and woke up late. We had to go to Pudong International airport to catch our plane back to DC. We decided to take the Maglev instead of a taxi. Yes, a maglev - the only commercial Maglev that runs in Shanghai for a 30 mile distance to the airport. We took a taxi to the Maglev station, bought our tickets and were ready to board this most-awaited beauty. It was a 7 min. ride. During the first 3 minutes, the maglev accelerated to 430 km/hr (yes, I mean it). It maintained that speed for a minute and then spent the next 3 minutes to decelerate. I am extremely glad that we got a chance to ride the maglev. We reached Pudong airport, which is also another very nice airport. We flew back to DC via Chicago. For about 2 days, we were jetlagged. On the whole it is a memorable trip and would love to go back to China in future.

"Maglev"


"Max Speed"

Back after a looooong time!!

Wow.. more than a year has passed since I posted here and a lot has happened during this year. My last post was in October 2007 and I just cannot believe that we are already at the end of 2008. During the later part of 2007, we were busy finishing up our research in order to graduate. We defended our dissertation in November. Finally, my husband and I graduated together with Ph.D. degrees in December 2007. The university made it very special by hooding both of us together on stage. It was an absolutely joyous time with my parents and family. We also made a trip to southern California, Las Vegas and Grand Canyon with my parents who were visiting us to celebrate this occasion. Immediately after graduation, our challenging days of "the move" began. We flew to Washington, DC to finalize an apartment. We spent a couple of days looking around and were absolutely overwhelmed with the cost of living and rental prices. After intense searching, we finalized an apartment in northern Virginia, about 15 miles away from downtown DC. We flew back to Texas and started packing. We spent a week packing and shipping off everything including one of our car. After that we spent a day handing over the old apartment, bidding farewell to friends and to Dallas. We had spent 6 years there and had really enjoyed living there. Hence, it was not easy to leave. Just before leaving Dallas, we made one last trip to the Dallas Museum of Art which had been on our list of things-to-do for a very long time. We spent an afternoon there and then started our 1300 mile drive to DC.

We drove for a week stopping at different cities on our way, sightseeing and spending time exploring them. We drove through the state of Arkansas and then into Tennessee. Our first stop was in Memphis, Tennessee. We spent the night there and in the morning explored Memphis downtown. We visited the Memphis Pyramid Arena (20000 seat arena) and clicked some pictures. We strolled on the banks of the Mississippi river for some time and then continued our journey.

Memphis, Tennessee

Our next stop was at the foothill of the "Great Smoky Mountains", in the city of Sevierville. We relaxed there for the night and drove into the mountains the next day. We spent all day going around Smoky Mountain National Park. We started out by driving through the Cades Cove loop road, a 11 mile drive through a valley that is surrounded by mountains. It was an absolutely beautiful sight and we also got to see some wildlife. We then drove through Newfound gap, saw the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee on these mountains, and then drove south all the way towards Cherokee to Oconaluftee Visitor Center. We saw the barn at the mountain farm museum, spent some time strolling in the valley and viewing the historic buildings there.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

We then drove back to Gatlinburg, the city at the northern end of the national park. We took the sky lift (rope way chair) to a man-made ski resort. We didn't have time for skiing but went around the area and the sky lift in itself was great fun. Once we reached the top of the mountain we got to see the cities of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg from the top. The sun had set and it was starting to get dark. We got to see a beautiful view from there. We came back to Gatlinburg and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The city was nicely lit up with lot of activity as it was Christmas day. We spent an hour strolling the streets, eating ice-cream and clicking pictures. We stayed in Gatlinburg that night. We woke up late the next day, spent a few more hours in the morning in Gatlinburg and the Smoky's.

Gatlinburg, at foothills of Smoky Mountains

By afternoon, we resumed our drive. Our next stop was in Bristol, Tennessee. It was a city on the Interstate 81 to Virginia. We relaxed in Bristol and next morning continued driving. We took a small diversion and drove through the scenic "Blue Ridge Parkway" which is listed as one of "America's Byways". We drove for a couple of hours on this scenic route and thoroughly enjoyed nature. We made stops at various vista points. After sunset, we got back onto the interstate and reached Herndon, Virginia (our friend's home, where we were going to camp for a day before moving into our new apartment) that night which was our final destination. The 1300 mile drive finally came to an end. It was a memorable drive and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Soon we were into year 2008. The month of January, we were pretty much settling down in our new apartment, new job, and in the new city. The remaining year just flew by and here we are ready to welcome another new year. We did a number of interesting and different things during the year. Hopefully I will find time to write about them soon.