Highlights from 17 days in Beijing & Shanghai

The Shangri-la Hotel is one of at least four properties run by that chain in Beijing. Located very close to the third ring road on the west side of the city, it consists of two buildings, the old Garden Wing, where we stayed, and the newer Valley Wing. “Wing” conjures up something a little more low-rise and bucolic than what you actually get – two standard- issue high-rise buildings – but then this is Beijing where nearly everything is outsized. The lobby is trademark Shangri-la with soaring (there’s that word again) spaces and glittering chandeliers. The breakfast room /all-day dining room, Cha, is located on the ground floor and is backed with an enormous glass wall that looks out to a very pretty garden. Our room on the (allegedly non-smoking) 15th floor looked out over the garden as well, affording views of many garden weddings and other celebrations.

The Valley Wing rooms are reportedly both newer (2007) and nicer. I planned to tour some of those rooms before check-out but then ran out of time (and possibly motivation) before doing so I can’t say. What I did tour, also in the new Valley Wing building, was the very good health club, lovely palm-shaded pool (if an indoor pool can be shaded by anything), and the sumptuous new Tibetan-themed spa, Chi. Even if I had deep pockets, I would have trouble with the commercial exploitation of Tibetan temples for such purposes. Their services – starting at nearly $100 USD for a foot massage -- were also wildly out of my price range so there’s a nice dovetail of principles and pragmatics. It is a gorgeous facility though. I expected to use the pool and health club, but wound up doing so much walking and exploring in the city that I never paid another call on those facilities.

As you might expect, there are numerous restaurants and bars (7?) including the trendy Blu Lobster touted for “molecular gastronomy” (whatever that is), a Cantonese restaurant, and a Japanese restaurant. I had one solo dinner in the comparatively prole Cha – an Indonesian dish chosen because I knew nothing about it (Nyona Laksa), followed by a mango budding (sic) with sago pearls also chosen because I had no idea what it was. It was rubbery mango pudding served in a preposterously tall martini glass and topped with what look like the tapioca pearls from bubble tea. Simple ice water rounded out my ascetic meal. Neither dish was well executed. The bill was about $ 50 USD. One doesn’t need to settle like that, folks, unless one is extremely jet lagged and disinclined to go out. The hotel’s extensive buffet breakfast was very good but I would recommend up, up, and away for anything more. For some of us, the other hotel restaurants are best treated as shrines to commercial and cultural development worthy of a quick peek.

The hotel staff are very helpful and friendly.

Inside the revolving front door, the hotel sported a somewhat awkwardly rigged metal archway with a thermometer draped for the purpose of registering guests’ temperatures. (It was rather amusing to watch guests decide to either engage with it or dodge it since either option was equally convenient.) During my ten night stay, everyone I observed coming and going had a temperature of exactly 34 degrees and nobody was hustled off. What I came to think of as the “H1N1 huppah” stayed in place though.

Oh, I almost forget to mention – now there’s a little insight into my priorities and interests – that the hotel was the headquarters of the China Open tennis tournament during the first 2/3 of our stay. The new China, indeed. After the tennis crew cleared out, the large glass vats of tennis balls on display everywhere were gradually replaced by more soothing plants and flowers. The young women maitre d’s at Café Cha continued to sport tennis whites and perky caps for days after though.

Our first full day in Beijing had appealing balance. Up too early, of course, we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, particularly the dumplings and fruits we don’t get at home such as dragonfruit and lychees. They offered a soup station that looked like a Vietnamese pho station but the result, even when jazzed up with lots of chilis, wasn’t quite on a par with pho. After breakfast, we took a stroll through the garden.

My husband’s friend sent a car for us at 11:30 and that took us to meet the friends – a couple and their young son – at a very lovely restaurant that served Hangzhou cuisine. They were nice enough to invite us to join them for the last day of the Golden Week holiday in observance of both National Day and Autumn Festival. They confided that most Chinese were exhausted at that point though since every family had crammed weddings, birthdays, and other celebrations galore into the 8-day holiday period. The cuisine was light and featured some wonderful seafood and river fish. A crab dish was a memorable treat. I also learned at that meal that a dish that I had been avoiding for years at other events because it looked to me like big slick discs of fatty sausage was in fact sliced lotus root stuffed with sticky rice. I love those travel moments when I realize how misinformed or dead-wrong I have been about something.

The car was put back at our disposal for a little bit after lunch so I asked the driver to take us to the rather newly restored Confucious Temple and Imperial College. They were in dusty disarray when we visited the nearby Lama Temple years earlier so I was anxious to see them. He offered to wait for about 40 minutes while we wandered among the temples, pavilions, and stelae, and came to terms with the fact that we were back in China. I would recommend a longer visit to this lovely complex.

Back in the car and we were offered a ride to one more drop point. It was my husband’s turn to choose and he chose the Olympic grounds since he had already visited the facilities in previous years but he knew that the last time I was in Beijing they were, at best, holes in the ground. We got dropped off by the Watercube and bid farewell to the driver. For the next couple of hours, we wandered around, admiring the Watercube from the outside and paying to go inside the Bird’s Nest where we sat and enjoyed watching the crowd and the large-screen videos of Olympics highlights. Lines were very short and reasonable by Chinese standards since it was late in the day on the last day of the holiday, but there still were enormous crowds of people everywhere.

We hopped in a cab for the ride back to the hotel where we settled in with tea and books and called it an early night.

A word on taxis. We had excellent luck with taxis in Beijing and Shanghai. Our hotel did have a consistently executed practice of handing you a card with your taxi number on it every time you returned to the hotel in a cab so you would have recourse in the event of a mishap or property loss, but we didn’t experience any difficulties. Years earlier, I had numerous problems in Beijing with taxis not putting the meter down, or misreading our hotel card and taking us elsewhere and insisting he (the driver) was correct, or refusing a destination, but post-Olympics, those scenarios seem to have vanished.

Our next day in Beijing was the last day before my husband’s colleagues arrived and work began in earnest so we decided on a day visiting universities. After a enormous breakfast at a table overlooking the fountain and gardens, we headed north in a taxi for Peking University (“Bei Da,” short for Beijing Daxue).

We had read about the Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology and Sculpture Gardens, a small teaching museum and garden funded by a husband and wife pair of American philanthropists and located past a small lake inside the university’s west gate. We had been told that passports were required for entry onto the campus but that demand never materialized. We were shown in the gate and directed to the museum where we paid the trivial admission fee of about 5 yuan. For the next hour and a half or so, we enjoyed a short course on Chinese art and archaeology that took us from the Paleolithic era through the Ming dynasty. English signage admittedly petered out in the later dynasties but the collection was very worth viewing. We then relaxed in the gardens which were restful and pretty albeit not particularly well tended. We then spent another hour or so walking around the campus and sitting by the large lake.

Time to move on. We hailed a taxi and headed over to Tsinghua University, what some Americans refer to as the MIT of China. We had stayed there a few times years ago but, once again, the changes made in the past 4 to 5 years were staggering, with so many new buildings. We toured around and then, feet screaming for a rest, we headed for a café that my children and I were fond of those same few years ago – Sculpting in Time Cafe. It was still there but looked considerably more upmarket. We relaxed awhile over cold drinks, me always absorbed in maps and guidebooks so I could figure out possible next steps. We still were none too solid but were taking it all one step at a time.

Refreshed by our café stop, we headed into a mobile phone store to try to buy a new card for my phone but, between our toddler-level Mandarin and their pre-school level English, we failed to figure out the differences among the different purchase options. Nobody’s miming skills were up to it so we gave up and headed for the last stop in our trio of universities.

That last stop was “Bei Yu,” the Beijing Language and Culture University where our daughter had resided during the summer of 2008 while studying intensive Chinese. She had sent me detailed instructions on the recommended gate of entry and the path to follow to get to her building. We navigated according to her excellent instructions and took pictures of ourselves goofily grinning and pointing at landmarks on campus so she could eventually see evidence that we had explored her old stomping grounds. We were very proud of her for signing a Mandarin-only language pledge for the 9 weeks of that summer program and completing third-year college Mandarin so it was personally meaningful to see where she had lived.

At this point, we hailed another taxi, returned to the hotel, and just collapsed. Ah, that 12-hour time difference.

Sounds great. It's amazing how taxis are such a convenience in Asia. We found the H1N1 phobia to be amusing. The tempreature reading in the hotels was perfect. One of the great things about reading trip reports is that it vividly brings back memories of our trips. Thanks. Timely report, no penalty. We did miss you at the GTG. Next year.

I'm leaving it to someone else to ask what WWPNHD means. I'm scared of the answer.

Ah, that would be "What would Peter Neville-Hadley do?" I am very grateful for everything that I learned from him here an anon, particularly on the Oriental List, so you might say he was our family's "higher authority" when we first started going to China. Sorry if my secularism leads me to make references in poor taste, but I mostly meant to make fun of myself for rigidly casting about for memorized decision rules in a situation in which I felt out of my depth. One does sometimes feel in over one's head in China. Worth it though.

Poor taste is welcome here! I agree, China can make one feel adrift. The wonder soothes the jangled panda nerves nicely. The entire abbreviation mode is a tribute to P.G. Wodehouse, the master of the amusing acronym.

Perhaps you will recommend a Wodehouse title or two for the official Fodor's boof list?

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to turn my attention to something of the utmost seriousness: Chinese food and cooking school.

The next day was Saturday, a day that I had been anticipating with particular enthusiasm. Here’s why. Last year, I became interested in learning about culture through food and so began to read some books that we might inelegantly refer to as food memoirs. After enjoying Jen Lin-Liu’s “Serve the People: a Stir-Fried Journey through China” among other books that we discussed here on Fodor’s, I was intrigued to explore the author’s web site and learn that she operated a cooking school in a Beijing hutong.

The Heizima or Black Sesame Cooking school is located in the hutong of the same name in the Dongcheng section of Beijing. If you know Beijing at all, it is northeast of the Forbidden City and close to the Drumtower. Have a look: http://www.blacksesamekitchen.com/

They offer a variety of services that match your energy level, from cooking classes to “wine ‘n dine” evenings in which you sit and sip wine while watching a Chinese meal being prepared. Whatever the format, you relax in the adjacent dining room afterwards and consume what has been cooked. Before leaving Boston, I had secured two reservations (at 300 yuan a head) in a three-hour, Saturday afternoon class on dumplings. For the record, I am interested in food but have no special expertise. I certainly have no knife skills. My husband’s repertoire is defined by grilled steaks and shish kebabs. OK, a little more than that but not much. I was thrilled that he was willing to join me in this adventure.

We arrived ridiculously early so spent a half hour delightedly wandering the hutong, then went into the class. Let me cut to the chase since I could write on and on about this experience and keep you stuck in the hutong with me for a very long while: I am a big fan. Everyone was lovely and the experience was great fun. The event manager, Candice, is ethnic Chinese but grew up and went to school in the US so she translates and bridges the cultural gap with warmth and ease. The class was taught by one of Lin-Liu’s mentors, Chairman Wang, who had been a most intriguing and appealing character in the book so I was pleased to meet her. The other students that day were from the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, and the US so English flowed. If people are interested, I can write more about this but suffice it to say that I enjoyed the day so much that I signed up for the next open class the following Thursday.

Ok, no interest, dud report, so here’s a mid-course correction: I’ll wrap up with a few thoughts and a short list of some of the trip’s most memorable experiences in case there is targeted interest in any of the sights or restaurants.

First, summing-up thoughts. Prior to this trip, I loved going to Southeast Asia, swooned at the opportunity to travel anywhere in Indochina, but just found travel in China to be…well…profoundly interesting. How can one not be interested in China, after all? That, I realize, is a rational argument rather than any kind of admission of affection or genuine enjoyment. In the past, I have to confide that I was happy to get out of China and go onto someplace magical (for me) like Luang Prabang, or Chiang Rai, or Hong Kong, or Bangkok, or Hue, or Siem Reap, or (you fill in the rest).

This trip to China was very different from my visits in 2004 and 2005 and ignited my enthusiasm to return yet again. I suppose that I have become a little more knowledgeable and savvy, and that helps, but in large measure, Beijing and Shanghai have changed a huge amount in how they make their cities’ cultural resources available to foreigners. Larger cultural-economic trends and the experience of the Olympics 2008, as well as the prospect of Shanghai Expo 2010, have made it much easier to travel on your own, at least in these two major cities.

Here is a coarse but possibly compelling insight into the magnitude of change as I experienced it. With our blonde hair and blue eyes, my daughter and I were, to our surprise, like a walking circus act in Beijing five years ago; my memories of so many major attractions, including the Summer Palace, Beihai Park, Tiantan, etc., are bound up with memories of constantly being accosted for photos and for persistent comparisons (forearm to forearm) of skin tone. Those experiences were unimaginable to me during this last trip.

The on-the-ground interactions that keep a trip humming along – interactions with taxi drivers, shop-keepers, ticket sellers, hotel staff, wait-staff, and all – were so much easier to negotiate than they used to be. The energy, excitement, and sense of moving ahead that you feel on a daily basis in these cities is breathtaking. Such rapid cultural change has an enormous downside, I know, and this is not the forum in which to discuss the major issues relating to the environment, human rights, social inequality, and so on, that we all care about, but, from the point of view of this average tourist, China has become more welcoming and more accessible than it seemed a few years back. There may be some among you who love SEA and haven’t been tempted by the PRC who just might want to reconsider.

Memorable experiences:

Beijing

1. Going to the Black Sesame Cooking School for two leisurely classes, delightful conversation, and sublime eggplant
2. Seeing the new National Centre for the Performing Arts (the Egg) under evening illumination and attending a performance by the Stuttgart Ballet
3. Touring the new Capital museum, particularly the “folk arts” such as Minorities’ exhibits and the recreated hutong
4. Wandering around Tiananmen Square to experience the parade floats and other exhibits on the very last night of the National Day holiday period – catching glimpses of Mao’s portrait through the floats and wondering if this was real
5. Getting lost for a couple of hours in Black Bamboo Park where I was the only visible westerner
6. Wandering around the Back Lakes area for much of a day, visiting small sights such as the Mei Lanfang house, and sitting by lakes
7. Savoring a Yunnanese dinner at Dali Courtyard
8. Being a guest at dinner at Yan restaurant in Haidian (near Tsinghua University)
9. Wandering through the Confucius Temple and Imperial College
10. Visiting the Olympics grounds at an off-peak time
11. Sampling three university campuses – Bei Da, Tsinghua & Bei Yu
12. Wandering in several different hutongs (sense a pattern here?)

Shanghai list of memories to follow.

I completely agree that China is now relatively easy for tourists to negotiate. There is so much wandering to do that pays super dividends. I note that none of your first eleven points of interest were things that we did, but we still had a fantastic time.

Marya_ - I'm very much enjoying your report.... I think you abbreviated at the end? I, for one, would be interested in the longer version and more details!

Shanghai (in no particular order)

1. exploring Xintiandi and nearby Taipingqiao Park during the early morning, then relaxing in an outdoor café as the day got in full swing
2. wandering around the French Concession area for hours, then finding respite in vest-pocket parks and great cafes like the Old China hand Reading Room and an antique store-café on Sinan Lu
3. touring the Shikumen courtyard house museum at Xintiandi
4. paying a call on Sun Yat Sen and Soong Qing Ling at their lovely French Concession area home
5. similarly paying a call on Zhou En Lai
6. riding the fastest train in the world (Maglev)
7. visiting the highest-elevated occupied floor in the world at Shanghai World Financial Center, which put us even higher up than our last visit’s trip up the Jin Mao Tower (I am claiming that this is “memorable,” not better)
8. eating dumplings at Din Tai Fung, at both Pudong and YuYuan
9. touring the Memorial for the site of the First National Congress of the CPC and reflecting on how all people and countries build cultural mythologies
10. strolling the (to me, new) Pudong waterfront one day and sitting out at night on the Bund side of the Huangpu the next night
11. revisiting the Shanghai Museum (although I was disappointed that Minorities’ Exhibit is still closed)
12. savoring lunch at Tai Thai on Tai Kang Lu after wandering and browsing in the galleries and shops
13. watching the artists and artisans work at the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Museum and trying not to feel too sad over how run down the beautiful house was
14. dallying in the City Temple of Shanghai (near YuYuan) during a prayer service
15. marveling at how each very long walk turned into a sort of roller-coaster ride as it brought me in and out of shiny-newly-developed and poor-neglected areas, over and over and over.
16. Marveling at how complex and delicious Kung Pao sauce can be at South Beauty Restaurant

Fini.

I enjoyed your report too. If you have more time, could you give us more detail?

dreaming and sdtravels -- thanks for your kind words. If you have particular questions or even vague areas of interest about travel to Beijing and Shanghai, I would love to try to respond to them. Just let me know.

Very interesting report, especially the post olympic changes in the city. My 12 year old son and I (both blonde) are planning a trip next year to include a visit to my daughter who is teaching in Yiyang,Hunan Province. Based on her experience there she has warned us to expect a lot of attention so its nice to know Beijing is a bit more relaxed. As its our first visit we will be doing all the major sights but Ive noted some of the places you visited, and will try to squeeze them in.

Hi marya. I'm sorry we didn't get to meet. This boston GTG was my first. I am kimberly, cousin of Jessica aka quirkles, if you have met her. I'm going to Beijing in May for a family bat mitzvah. I'll take time on my own in Beijing, so I'm following your details. I'm also interested in flying to another china destination, though probably not Shanghai, if anyone has any recommendations. I hope it fits with blog protocol to also interject commentary with questions

MaryA-Beth loved your report. Trust me, her praise is not given lightly. It's the highest Fodors acheivement.

Kimberly-threads often veer sideways. Don't worry about it. If this is your first China trip, I would go to Shanghai along with Beijing. Both are amazing. Who knows when you will next be in China? Shanghai is incredible.

Andy and Beth -- thank you for your encouragement. It has taken me a few trips to get on the China wavelength but I now have a confirmed interest and growing facility for navigating around. I am eager to go back and experience more of the country. You two, by contrast, seem to have rocketed through the awkward adjustment phase that plagues many first-time travelers to China -- I am impressed.

Kimberly -- That's great that you may be able to use the Beijing trip as a platform to seeing something else of the country. Any reason why Shanghai doesn't interest you? Is it because you will be traveling in May when the Shanghai Expo has opened and you fear that the city will be even more madly overrun? Are you looking for something very different, hoping to get away from big cities perhaps? If you expand on your interests, you might shake loose some intriguing recommendations from some knowledgeable people here.

This is a good opportunity to remind anyone thinking about a trip to Shanghai that the schedule for the Shanghai Expo 2010 might influence your travel plans in one of several ways, depending upon your travel style. I am including a link to the website here: http://en.expo2010.cn/participation/pop/moren.htm. Expo runs from 1 May to 31 October 2010. There is a great deal of construction in the run-up to Expo, of course. Some folks might think Expo a draw while others would rather wait until after it is over for a visit.

Izzi -- I would be fascinated to hear more about what your daughter reports about her teaching experience! By the way, do you know Peter Hessler's wonderful book, RIVER TOWN, about his experiences teaching in Sichuan province in the mid-to-late 1990s?

Thank you Andy and Marya for your comments. Exactly... Since I am spending time in Beijing with the family, I wanted to try another destination that is a totally different pace, rather than another megalopolis(?).

I have read River Town and will say I am intrigued by the gorges, which I believe Bob and Karen did. I will start a new thread requesting random China recommendations.

Marya -- Really enjoyed your TR especially the depth of your observations.
I remember going often to the Purple Bamboo Park on the west side of the city when I was living there, where is the Black Bamboo Park, please?

Good question -- I went through the same process of confusion. It is the same park (Zizhuyuan). I saw various references to it on maps (including the Olympics-era map still distributed at hotels) and in guidebooks as "Purple Bamboo Park," but then the official brochure at the park office calls it "Black Bamboo Park" so I went with that name.

With many small gardens, play spaces, water, bridges, a shop/restaurant, and more, it is a great place to wander around off the tourist track, no? That was one of the only times in Beijing that I went for hours alone without seeing another westerner.

Another lovely spot in that neighborhood that you must know is Wan shou si (Longevity Temple). Parts of the temple complex were closed though so that diminished my enjoyment somewhat.

The scale of everything in Beijing is so vast that visiting those two seemingly proximal attractions on foot took several hours. Calling it a neighborhood is perhaps a little misleading. What a city!

Hi Marya
My daughter graduated from university this spring and went to China on a one year teaching programme in August.Quite a few went to Hunan Province and she is one of 5 who were placed in Yiyang. She spoke no Chinese when she left but is teaching at a University so her students have a fairly good grasp of English. Also they are quite close in age so are very friendly inviting them out at weekends etc. When she first arrived, she and the girl she shares the flat with were treated like celebrities when they went into town, everyone wanted their photos taken etc. She has not seen any other Europeans in Yiyang although in the main city Changsha there are a few expats. On National day they were guests of honour at the celebrations, sitting one row behind the war veterans. She has found it an amazing experience. She loved her long weekend in Hong Kong because no one stared at her.

Here a few extracts from her emails to me

There are 26 other people training with us and everyone is really nice so is Amy and her assistant who has chosen for himself the english name "puff" after puff the magic dragon so he said, we havnt told him the meaning of his name as he seems very proud of it. Most people who have some level of English seem very keen to persue it and have access to native speaking English they all come and chat, those who dont all just stand and stare especially at us girls, its abit odd but im starting to get used to it, Amy said for the poorer classes who dont have as much acess to travel education etc.. we are the closest they have come to the western world.

the waitresses at the restauraunt were so excited to see us they kept taking photos of us all eating

You can tell that there is alot of poverty and even within the city there are huge contrasts building to building. little old people in straw hats on push bikes and buisness men in mercs. The babies all have babygrows with no bums in which is pretty funny,none of them are in prams. The traffic lights are in the middle of the road with huge stop watches counting down how long till they change. Lots of stuff is very different but we are enjoying exploring.

the only way i can describe the heat is like being in the reptile house at the zoo its really close and sticky, but all the buildings have air conditioning so we just jump from building to building. The Chinese women all carry parasoles as well so i may invest in one .

We went to the supermarket this afternoon and they really do have the strangest things we thought we had found a pet department but it was all for eating the customers fish there own live fish out of tanks put them in a bag still wriggling weigh them then push them around in their trollys next to their shopping while they die it was a little disturbing to say the least, im sure that any fish i cook will be dead well prior to arrival! to be honest tho we havnt paid more than 2 pounds for a meal since we arrived so i think eating out is the way forward. the supermarket also had live frogs and turtles and tortoises me and Evan (who is also teaching at yiyang) have decided we are going to have one as a pet .

Just finished teaching for the day, had the funniest lesson, I got them in couples doing roll plays about marriage having a baby or moving in together, they were meant to have a debate for and against each decission, ended up being hilarious, had proposals, birth and one guy even sung westlife songs to his girlfriend to convince her to marry him. I love teaching oral english wish all my lessons were so much fun!

The picnic was adorable it was actually a bbq at a park near Yiyang, they had like huge stone bbqs you could hire my students were cooking for 2 hours they made literally 50 different chinese dishes all so yummy i was stuffed tho as they all insisted i try theres After lunch we went rafting on a lake with literally the most unstable rafts i have ever seen, was good fun!

All ive heard about widow of the world is from students who have told me it is "a good place to play with many activities and entertainment where you can excite yourself" you gotta love Chinglish! i get the impression that is a theme park with different countries,

As you can see she is having a wonderful time and we are very excited to be going to visit her next year.

mary--i really enjoyed reading this and look forward to a future visit to shanghai and a return to beijing....

bob

Purple Bamboo Park it is, not far from the Beijing Zoo. In summer the lake is filled with beautiful lotus flowers and it is quite a sight in winter when the lake is frozen and snow covers the grounds.

you should visit the local residence house in beijing and shanghai,it is very unique.

Izzi -- How delightful of you to share some of your daughter's observations! Thank you. It is lots of fun to read a young person's fresh impressions. I love her enthusiasm.

Some of her comments, particularly those about marketing, remind me of us when we first visited China. One of our very first days in Beijing, my children and I were crossing a pedestrian bridge over a busy roadway when we encountered many vendors aggressively selling tiny birds or ducklings in very small cages. Being "fresh of the boat," we found the sight a little charming and a little alarming since the animals were so tightly constrained and there was no food or water in evidence. We immediately leapt to a totally wrong (culturally determined) conclusion, assuming that these little creatures were being sold as pets since children were stopping to ooh and aah and sometimes carry them off when their parents purchased them. Was this something like rabbits and chicks at Easter in the US, we wondered? Was there some special holiday or tradition? When we found someone who spoke rudimentary English to answer our question about "what the animals were for," we got an unexpected one-word answer: "Fried." Oh... Naturally that's a word that we have subsequently tossed around in our family for great comic effect. The joke was on us that day though. How little we understood about so much that we saw. It takes time...

Travel sure can change your point of view on things though. I'll also never forget the experience of coming back to the US after an extensive period in Asia, going into a fish market and being forcibly struck by the fact that all the fish were dead and headless. The market seemed sepulchral and spooky and not at all right. Similarly, the American model of dining out in which each person orders his or her own food, no sharing, seems unfortunate now. And then there is our acquired preference for round dining tables rather than the rectangles favored here in the states. I'll stop there with those humble food-related examples but there is quite a list! It will be interesting to see how your daughter's extended stay abroad changes some of her attitudes and preferences.

I had to 'Google' Yiyang to see where she was. Being off in Hunan province is much more culturally challenging and stimulating than traveling to Beijing and Shanghai as I did. Good for her! Do I recall correctly that you are going in the Spring? Are you still figuring out your itinerary? What fun -- I hope that you'll be checking in here as you make your plans.

Shanghainese -- Now you are inspiring me to go back to (let's call it Purple) Bamboo Park in other seasons. That sounds very appealing.

ees12 -- What is the local residence house? I have seen some hutong homes in Beijing and the shikumen open courtyard house museum in Shanghai, but I'm not sure that I gt the reference. Please explain since I would be very interested. (There are two such local house museums in Hanoi that I really enjoyed visiting.)

WWPNHD? On reading that laugh and blush at the same time.

But on the park: it's really is only known as the Purple Bamboo Park, the character 紫 having the meaning of 'purple' or 'violet', or (much more obscurely, 'Pole Star'. (This is why even Chinese sources will sometimes tell you that the Palace Museum is also known as the Purple Forbidden City. It's the same 紫 character, but the palace was built to be lined up on the Pole Star--look at any map and you'll see it's not quite north-south. So 'Pole Star Forbidden City' would be the right translation.) In combination with another character 紫 can mean 'very dark purple', and in botanical uses it can mean lilac, amethyst, or even red.

Unfortunately Chinese sources tend to be hopeless on many things, accuracy not really being the point of tourist-targeted ones in particular, and colours in place names do seem to be a particular problem (although I've never myself seen 'Black Bamboo Park'). Earnest explanations of the meaning of Hohhot always get 'green city' mixed up with 'blue city' for instance. Unfortunately 青 can mean both 'blue' and 'green' and translators into English tend to chose the one that seems most sensible, but in the case of Inner Mongolia's capital is wrong.

Good to see someone finding Wanshou Si, which in addition to being a favourite spot of Cixi is also an excellent little museum. For those who may follow in your footsteps, Just to the right of the main entrance (as you face it) you can find what's left of the Yanqing Si, its courtyards much filled in with jerry-building and home to hundreds. This has been the fate of most Beijing temples, and not far behind, through a military complex invisible to maps there's the Fahua Si, which has suffered the opposite fate of being restored to the point of being completely rebuilt.

From just outside the Wanshou Si (and across the road) you can find the 特8内环 bus which will take you round to the Great Bell Temple (Da Zhong Si), also well worth a view.

Peter N-H