Well, after three weeks of no blogging, I'm back for 12 hours before I head out to Chengdu and Chongqing with a good friend of mine here. We're off to explore the wonders of Sichuan: pandas food and all.
The last two and a half weeks have been filled with vacation time. Adam came to visit me and we made 17 days into a most fantastic holiday. We spent a week in Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou. These three cities for all who are unfamiliar with China encompass the spectrum from European Imperialism all the way to quaint garden cities that are the basis of Chinese myth about the West Lake. We ooohed and ahhhhed over the mix of modernity and 19th century European influence in Shanghai and then jetted out to garden cities of Suzhou and Hangzhou to stroll along the banks of the West Lake, climb the stairs of the Linyin ancient Zen Buddhist temple and meandered through the secret gardens of Suzhou. I introduced Adam to all kinds of Chinese food....from classy to hole-in-the-wall establishments, while he cultured me on the fine dining of Indian food.
We spent time in Hong Kong and I tried to convince him of HK's "top 1 city" status in my book. We gazed at skyscrapers road the midlevels escalator, walked the avenue of the stars and ate Indonesian food in Causeway Bay.
I spent a week showing him my personal stomping ground: Shenzhen. We walked parks filled with kite-flyers and families and ate chinese bbq.
At then end of it all Adam may have gone home with a pair of worn-out shoes (we walked and walked and walked literally everywhere all day long), but I am here left with the feeling that I love showing people the country that I so dearly love. Travelling and experiencing China all over again made me love this place all that much more.
I'll be back in a week armed with backpacking adventures and hopefully pictures of pandas.
