scenes from our trip to China- part II

I think later I will post a link to all the pictures for those of you who are interested. For now, a little back track as more pictures from daddy's camera.

Yu- yuan in Shanghai. This is the place for specialty eats, and shops in Shanghai. Prices also vary greatly in the same place. If you buy your goods in a nice store front, you would probably have to pay double or more for the same item. Same goes for the food. It is all about the ambiance.


Very famous candied haw sticks. But for my kids, they prefer the candied strawberries. They have already picked out their souvenir from China- panda bears. :) Another thing you need to know is in China, there are generally no returns or store credit. Only exceptions are certain department stores may have 7 day return/exchange policy.


Day 3- Beijing. This is how we came up the Great Wall of China- via the cable cars. J and W liked riding these. They were my favorite thing to ride as well as a child, albeit little scary if the weight is not even distributed and you look down too much.

Day 3 in Beijing- Climbing the great wall of China. It was very steep. Most people need to hold on to the side bars as they come down. Another thing you should know is in China, you need to hold on to your tickets. They check it when you come in and check it again when you leave. So if you don't have your tickets upon exiting, you will have to buy the tickets again.


Not the best day to visit The Great Wall of China as it was foggy and drizzling.


Day 3 Beijing- tian an men square. Chairman Mao is the icon in China. We waited over 1 1/2 hours in a super harried line to see his memorial. Had we known the visit was only going to be 2 minutes, we would have skipped this.


Day 4- This the Ming Dynasty model of walk through history. This is also where we all got pictures taken dressed up as the imperial family. Fun!


Day 5- Beijing I was sick the day before when I came back to the hotel so we skipped the tour and rested up before venturing on our own to get our luggage from the train station. That was an adventure and pretty fun. Later people told me the city purposely turn off the escalators in the subway station to save money on electricity.
Transportation is very convenient and fast at least in Beijing and Shanghai. Bus, subways, taxi, you name it. There is also what I would describe as motored rickety saw, good for a little scenery tour but I wouldn't recommended if you are going further than that.

If you come to the city via the train and even if you did not, you can store your luggage at the train station. We didn't know that before leaving Shanghai and shipped our luggage to Beijing and then had to store it because it was too much to lug around esp. since we had to change hotel so often. It's also not that cheap in China to get your clothes washed through the hotel.

More later for our 2nd tour in Nanjing, Shu zhou, Hang zhou, Shao Xing and back to Shanghai.