Travel China 9 cities

Taipei

Taipei is old and new. The Taipei Main Station is the biggest and most confusing I have ever seen. You are looking for the MRT line. That's the metro. If you go to Taroko Gorge, stay one night in Hualien. They don’t say Ta-roko. They say Tai-roko. The Chinese character is the one for too. It's possible to do it in a day but I tried and could not take time to walk or hike in the park. The city bus takes 2 hours to go up. I couldn't find a tour bus from the train station. There is a tour you can book from your hotel. It flies you into Hualien and has a tour bus waiting so that you can take some time to stroll in the park. I didn’t do it, but now I think it’s probably worth it, about $120US as I recall. Taipei 101 is awesome. I enjoyed the night markets. They are filled mostly with university students. You need a friend to find the really good restaurants but I like street or stall cooking. And it was fun.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is massive glass and chrome blocking out the sky, masses of people, flowing, moving, eating, laughing, noisy, buses, minibuses, double decker trolleys, cars, taxis, lights at night, the Star Ferry, Lamma Island like a respite from the real world only 45 minutes away by ferry, calm and quaint, a superfast airport express which gets you to Central in minutes, the most modern shopping centers and some of the biggest -- more shops than you thought there were shoppers on earth, the area behind the IFC building which is the tallest on the Hong Kong side is called Central and it has the world's longest escalator, which takes you to the mid-level high rise apartments on Victoria Peak. It is now an area full of shops and restaurants. The escalator only runs one way, down from 6-10 am and up the rest of the day till midnight.

Zhongshan

Zhongshan is completely new. It’s like they razed every last single old building and built anew. There are some nice tree lined streets, so they must have built the older sections at least 10 years ago. It’s nice but it lacks character. There’s no reason to go there except a lot of Chinese from Hawaii have their roots in the area. My family came from Nan Lang. That’s a Mandarin spelling. Cantonese say Nam Long. But the taxi driver, surprisingly, didn’t speak Cantonese. He spoke Mandarin. My tip is to always negotiate the price before hand in Zhongshan. After all, a trip to Nanlang was really a tour. We settled on 60 RMB. But it only took 20 minutes to go there and see the town. Plus, I ate my best bowl of handmade noodles there. It’s the ubiquitous dish in China. They call it niurou tang mian. Beef soup with beef and noodles. You can also have niutang jiaozi. With dumplings. I still had two hours before the ferry left so I agreed to a tour of the city, Zhongshan, minus the girls. But I didn’t negotiate that. That took another 25 minutes. Cost me 300 RMB. And the driver wouldn’t budge. I said “pianyi ma?” He said no. I said er bai kuai qian. $200 RMB. Nope. Bu xing. But I’m in China, the Iron Curtain, police state, I don’t want to be jail especially with the amount of Chinese I have. So I paid. Be warned.

Guilin

Guilin is the jumping off point for two of the prettiest places in China, Yangshuo and Ping’an. Guilin though is a faily large modern city. It has a bunch of 15-20story buildings and new construction everywhere. I had been warned about taxi drivers not taking laowai, or foreigners, to my tiny hotel. So when one cabbie pestered me for about three minutes as I walked away into the night, I ignored him. Bu yao, bu yao. Don’t want. Then after he left, I was completely lost. Turned to a guy walking next to me and asked him in Chinese, “Ni hui shuo Yingwen, ma?” He answered yes. Lordy. He walked me half an hour to my hotel. Tip: Don’t take the 400RMB tour to Ping’an offered at the airport Information Counter. They will offer it to you for 140RMB at the hotel. Or you can pay 15RMB if you’re up to catching the local bus yourself. Plus a 50RMB entrance fee at Ping’an.

Ping'an

…is the most unimagineable place I have ever stayed. First, you take a city bus two hours to the base of mountain in a narrow river valley where the Yao people will show off their hair, which stretches to the ground. Then you change buses to a smaller one which can navigate the treacherous curves climbing up a very steep mountain. Finally, you are let out at the entrance to Ping’An, which is also called the Longji Rice Terraces. It’s hundreds of steps up and probably another 1000 feet of elevation before you reach rough cedar buildings built in the old Yao style. Very picturesque. A few years ago, you would have been given a spare room in a farmer’s house and fed the same as the farmer was eating. Now, there are hotels in cedar wood with neon signs. My room had AC, TV and a western style toilet, everything you need. The food was excellent. I paid 80RMB, but I’m sure it will go up by the time you get there. The internet said 15RMB just before I left, May 09. And the views were stunning and worth it. Tip: they plant in early May. Before then, the fields are dry and colorless but still magnificent, I’m told.

Yangshuo

A few years ago, Yangshuo was a sleepy village discovered by backpackers. I found out about this place at a website called China Backpackers. Today, it is the bustling center of both foreign and domestic tourism for one of the prettiest places in China, full of 500 foot karst limestone hills jutting steeply out of a plain with rivers meandering picturesquely through. It is the stuff of countless Chinese silk scrolls. West Street used to be backpacker central where the hostels and bars catered to the foreign devils. Today it is a pedestrian mall full of curios and trinkets and other valuable Chinese stuff, a shoppers paradise. But the karst hills still dominate the town and are beautiful. Close-by is Xing Ping, billed as the part of the Li River, which is the prettiest. Xing Ping is what Yangshuo used to be. About 10 miles out of town. Old buildings and narrow alleyways. And a big bus parking lot. You know what will happen next. Or you can bike out west toward the Yulong River where the two lane country road narrows to one big macadam road to a rutted dirt road to a walking path built between rice paddies. This I suppose is what they say is the “real” China. For my money, the real China is Zhongshan, completely new and dizzying.

Shanghai

Shades of Hong Kong. Shanghai is bigger still. There are city centers every few miles, each with its collection of 60 story glass and steel highrises. Pudong is the new side of the city with the biggest buildings. It’s obviously the rich side. The streets are so big that there are few pedestrians. Most people get around the area by car. Across the Huangpu River, the Bund or Waitan, when I was there, was completely filled with construction for the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010. You have to climb a construction fence to see the lights of Pudong at night. And Yuyuan Garden is not a sleepy respite from the busy-ness of Shanghai. It is a shopping eating mecca for thousands of tourists, some of who refuse to pay the 40RMB to enter the real gardens. The shopping gardens are pretty anyway. And all the old town around the area are not old and quaint anymore, they are under construction for the Expo. But like Hong Kong, Shanghai is all about food. You definitely need a local guide to get the best food. And most of it is in the local section of HuaiHai Lu, about two miles from the river. In the French Concession area. Tip: use the Metro. It is the best. The signs are color coded and every platform has a sign showing every stop coming up for the train at that side of the platform.

Suzhou

Suzhou is like a tiny jewel set in a fairly large city. The tiny area that is the canal and Shantang street is so tiny that it’s laughable. The maps I saw on the internet make it look like you could walk from one World Heritage Garden to another but you can’t really. Humble Administrator’s Garden is all across town from Lingering Garden, and if you catch the city bus, you need to know the Chinese names for these places, which are Zhuo Zhen Yuan and Liu Yuan, respectively. Also the bus stop for Zhuo Zhen Yuan is not called that, it is called Suzhou Bowuguan or Suzhou Museum, since that is right next door to the gardens. It’s about a 20 minute bus ride or a 10-15RMB taxi. One student kept asking me why I wanted to catch the bus, I said catching the taxi was “tai rongyi,” too easy.; The Suzhou Shantang Canal is so pretty that many, many brides like to go there and have their wedding pictures taken. So, as you stroll along, you see these photo setups with drop dead gorgeous women in traditional Chinese qi pao or Cheong sam. Tip: if you want the famous Shantang picture, find your position about an hour before sunset, they turn the lights on early so that you take your picture with the red lanterns reflecting on the water with natural light. Just beautiful.

Hangzhou

…was my favorite. Because miles, at least, of the lakeside, are tree covered park full of park benches facing the water. After about 5 pm, you can sit in relatively quiet and great beauty, watching the sun go down behind famous Lei Feng Pagoda. Because of smog, the sunsets are particularly colorful, brilliantly orange. Plus there are dozens of boats of all kinds on the lake,many paddled by a single person, like in an Italian gondola, who present themselves in the shimmering glow of the dying sun. Hangzhou is also home to some of China’s most famous tea fields, with the famous Longjing cha. The fields are beautiful with a dark green, and the grounds of the National Tea Museum are the most exquisite I have seen. Hangzhou is also a center for Chinese silk. But if the 480-650RMB price for a real old style Chinese silk shirt with the high collar and cloth buttons is too much for you, consider one made of cotton or mianbo. I got one, beautiful I think, for 50RMB. The prices started at 60-90RMB. Tip: I had read that you should always offer at most half of whatever the shop person asked. Even as little as 20 percent. They laughed at me. I never really had anyone go down to less than about 80 percent. They let you walk away easily. My tip is walk away, let them make the second offer.