Today was the best day EVER! And one that I’ll remember forever. I got to see pandas and even got to hug a baby panda.
I start the solo portion of my trip today! My mom flew back to Vancouver and I’m flying to Chengdu to see pandas. I’m a might nervous and a lot excited to be traveling alone in a country where most of the people don’t speak English, nor do I speak Mandarin. It’ll be fun trying to communicate without my mom as interpreter.
You’d think that Chengdu would be more rural or wild, compared to the densely populated eastern half of China that I just spent 10 days traipsing through, but that would be wrong.
View more photos of my Shanghai trip on my Flickr album. Enjoy!
If Beijing is the husband and Xi’an is the wife, then Shanghai is the very modern son/daughter. So our tour guide, Sophie, tells us.
I couldn’t wait to get into Shanghai. Just driving into the city limits was getting me all excited, what with the insane and vertigo-inducing elevated highways and the UFO shaped Shanghai South Railway Station.
View more photos of my Hangzhou trip on my Flickr album. Enjoy!
When Marco Polo visited Hangzhou in the 13th century, he described it as “The City of Heaven” and the most magnificent in all the world. That’s pretty high praise from a world explorer and probably true back then. Fast forward 800 years and I’m sure it still makes the list of beautiful places in the world. It certainly is picturesque and peaceful. It’s even listed on as a UNESCO world heritage site.
View more photos of my Suzhou trip on my Flickr album. Enjoy!