Next we flew to Tunxi, where we caught a minibus to the Huangshan mountains. This is an area of steep rocky peaks that are often shrouded in mists, which just make them more picturesque. It is a major draw for artists and also is a popular tourist destination for Chinese but not so well known among international travelers. It is possible to climb hundreds of stairs to reach these peaks, but we took a cable car up one side, hiked across to the other side, and then took another cable car down. Even this seemed strenuous because there were lots of stairs just to get to the cable cars, more stairs to climb among the peaks on the three hour hike across, and more stairs at the bottom of the down cable car. Near the peaks, lots of the stairs were so steep, it was like climbing a ladder. But the incredible views made it all worthwhile.
In this area there was also a valley where we went to see monkeys called snow monkeys. They call them this because the babies are white, but as they get older they turn golden brown. They feed them corn once a day, which attracts them to the area where we viewed them.
Another popular area for Chinese tourists is Hangzhou, a city situated on the Grand Canal, and one which has a large, beautiful lake called the West Lake. Many couples get married or honeymoon here. We visited one of the largest oldest Zen Buddhist temples here, where there were also over 300 stone Buddha carvings in the cliffs nearby, and which were carved almost a thousand years ago.
Shanghai is the largest city in China and certainly the most modern. It also had some of the cleanest air, thanks to the proximity to the sea and also the Yangpo River which runs through it. There are many granite buildings on the Bund, a street facing the river, which were built by the British and French in the 1920’s and 30’s. These are being restored to their former grandeur and are beautifully lit up at night.
Across the river is an area called the Pudong, which used to be a swampy area supplying produce for the city. Now it is the site of the world’s tallest TV tower (the Pearl Tower), and there are over 400 other buildings, mostly skyscrapers, which have all been built in the last 10 years. The night lights on these buildings are also very impressive and colorful at night.
One of the must-see attractions is the Shanghai Museum, which is itself a beautiful modern building showing off in grand style some of the ceramics, bronzes, furniture, coins, painting, calligraphy, jades and sculpture, from the five thousand years of Chinese history that has left such things. Walking to the museum in the early morning, we enjoyed watching the locals participating in a wide variety of daily exercise: tai chi, ballroom dancing, routines with red fans, martial arts, etc. Visiting a street market right outside of our hotel, we noticed another local custom, which we were to see in other cities as well: people walking around the streets wearing their pajamas! It looked comfortable but a little too casual for us….
Moving on to another canal town, Zhouzhuang, we found ourselves to be one of the tourist attractions. Because this is almost totally a Chinese tourist town, many people stared at us, took our pictures, or asked us to pose with them for a picture. We stayed in a guesthouse – the former home of Shen Tilan, a famous scholar and writer of the Qing Dynasty, and there was a canal right outside the front door. As I was sitting on the canal wall, writing in my journal, many Chinese tourists stopped to watch me write, since they don’t write from left to right as we do, and to look at the pictures which I had glued into my journal. The local school children all yelled “hello” at us as they passed. That evening a man sat on the arched bridge over the canal and played his instrument which looked a lot like a violin, while people gathered and occasionally sang along.
