Upcoming China Trip
 

The pandas are about to return home. We leave Friday taking all of the advice we've gleaned from this forum and its participants. Special thanks to EKscrunchy and Shanghainese and NYwoman. Your patience is appreciated. Our final itinerary is Shanghai-3 days, Beijing-6 days and Shanghai-5 days. We cut out Hangzhou and Suzhou from the advice of Seth and Liz. We'll take a trip or two from Shanghai. We';ve hired a guide in Beijing for two days, one of whih will be a trip to the Great Wall. I plan on setting a land XLB record. It won't be pretty.

Have a brilliant time, don't be late with your trip report!

I think you are doing yourselves a disservice by not going to some of the gardens in Suzhou, you can do it as a day trip, I think.

Regardless, enjoy all of it, and see you in BKK

Have a great trip!

I wish you a furry good time!! Stay away from Fabio Wong!!

Thanks.

Nywoman-as self disservices go, missing Suzhou is a minor one. The YJ (Seth) said Suzhou was crowded and he didn't like it. Blame it on him. I figure it's more time to eat XLB's.

I hope you have a fantastic time. And, eat your Wheaties before the big hike on the wall!

If you are at Simatai, there is an outside bar with drinks and food with a beautiful view of the wall. It was the perfect stop to take it all in while sipping a beer. If you are feeling adventurous, you can take the zip line down to it!

Enjoy and look forward to hearing about it upon your return! Don't forget tp and immodium and you'll be fine. :D

Where's Bob? A thread started by Gpanda doesn't seem complete with a remark or two from Bob?

That should be a "!" at the end, not a "?".

Bob is a question mark! He's busy planning his safari in South Africa. The wildlife is praying for rain.

HT-I think you may have mixed metaphors invoking divine help for the current Chinese regime. In fact, I plan on walking through the Hutongs unguided.

My instincts were correct then, should have left the question mark as is. :D

Hi Andy,
Here are a few photos from our short trip to Beijing earlier this month. It is truly a fascinating city.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3880219...7622373299506/

i am here...dismayed of course that i am not mentioned as a contributor.....i nearly planned the whole D thing for him...and beth planned the rest.... he can't even get his clothing together without asking about it....

its really pathetic....but i guess fodors-land knows that already....

Bob at his worst. He's never beeen to Shanghai, but he claims he planned our trip. Delusional. One can imagine how concerned I am about his "dismay".

ShaneK-great pix. Where did you go at the Wall?

Andy, I hope that you and Beth have a great time.

Have a wonderful trip, Andy and Beth. Can't wait to read your impressions!

Hope you have a good trp - but the gardens in Suzhou are worth the crowds. Really. And I was there around National Day, they can't get worse than that.

Our trip is still fluid. I will speak to Mrs. Panda about the Suzhou gardens.

The trip report may have to wait until we return. It depends on access. I may have to take notes. A non-panda activity.

I promise not to append the report to this thread.

Andy will you be skyping BOB so you don't have withdrawal symptoms?

"The trip report may have to wait......"?????

UH, exCUSE me, but exactly HOW LONG are you planning to dilly dally before beginning the report?

Andy, We did the hike from Jingshangling to Simatai,most of the Wall photos are from this section. The night shots were taken at our "Gala" Dinner on the wall at Juyong pass.

I think a penalty is in order...

Have a fabulous trip and chomp on lots of tasty bamboo!

Let's see:

1. Definitely not skyping the POB.

2. I promise not to take a year to complete my report. It will be timely, but it may not be contemporaneous (Bob, that means that I may not be writing it at the same time I'm actually on the trip).

3. ShaneK-Beth has already planned out our wall expedition. I'm merely the carrier of heavy objects.

4. Craig-I can assure you that if a penalty is in order, I will not shirk my self-appointed duties and I will assess one.

5. Shanghainese-I can assure you that there will be lots of chomping on various food substances. The exact nature of which I am not currently aware. I do note that pandas are omniverous (sp?). We are not limited to bamboo. Of course, they are too slow to actually catch any animals that move more quickly than bamboo. Therefore, the diet of slow moving plant life.

Thanks to almost everyone for their good wishes.

Best wishes to you and Mrs Panda for a wonderful trip and plenty of munching on whatever pleases pandas!


You are from Boston and you are going to miss Suzhou? Kind of unbelievable when we were counting on you to report as a Bostonian on I. M. Pei's new museum in Suzhou:

http://www.artknowledgenews.com/I_M_...ou_Museum.html

His ancestral home is the very famous Lion Forest Garden in Suzhou. Maybe Bob's the one to blame for such faulty planning?

he has done not one thing to plan....he couldn't even buy a new notebook computer to take without running afoul of the authroities...

no one wants to hear his useless travel drivl anyways, we want to hear the real story from beth...

Our planning is always based on the assumption that we should do what we want and not worry about doing everything. If we like some place, we'll return some day. It's very freeing. Suzhou may have to wait for a panda appearance.

Is #2 supposed to be some sort of jab at someone here? I really cannot understand, after all the bandersnatch about MY tome, why you are not planning to file dispatches from the road.

Beware of tourist-targeting scallywags, as PeterNH admonishes in another thread.

EKS-up 'til now, scallywags have steered clear of large furry tourists. Hopefully, this will continue. Also, do I detect some guilt on the timeliness of reports? If possible, reports from the field will appear.

The Panda will be on the prowl for a free place to post, I am sure. He is addicted to all of you and thrives on your responces. They are bamboo to his soul. Have a great trip, listen to the Mrs, and have some dumplings for all of us.

That will be my goal, i.e., to have one dumpling for every poster on Fodors. It's ambitious, but pandas are persistent.

Gpanda, if you are eating one dumpling for every poster, I'll take the pork and crab dumpling at Ding Tai Fang, please. :)

i'll take the fish head dumpling

DTF is already on our schedule. Crab and pork sounds wonderful.

a schedule??

no one has schedules

Have a great trip, Andy. I expect to see pictures and hear details at the GTG in BOS.

Carol-of course there will be stories. Pictures? Can't ever be sure.

For the non-Needhamites, Bob was trying to be funny. Failed again. He always does a minute-by-minute schedule, including the smallest detail. the pandas do a "grid", generally outlining our activities. When we travel with the Needhamites, there is a clash between schedules and grids.

carol---if he had a notebook we could hear things as they were happening

I'm wondering how you will actually survive with out Bob and Karen. Maybe the title of your first "live" trip report will be: "Lost in China, the Panda and Beth miss RHKKMK".

Meanwhile you will be missing crucial RS games (well maybe not). What was Beth thinking when she planned this?