Shanghai

Continuing my monthly travels, I went to Shanghai in May.  We didn't do a lot of touristy things.  We just wanted to have fun and enjoy a little of what Shanghai has to offer.

We stayed near the French Concession area of Shanghai.  It is an old part of the city where a lot of restaurants and shops are close together.  It was really cool.

We ate lunch at a restaurant that had the most amazing burgers.  I got a chili cheese burger, and I was in heaven!

Later, we went to the Bund.  This is an area along the Huangpu River.  The walk along the river has a great view of the Shanghai skyline.

For dinner, we tried out a new Mexican bar.  My friend Steve has been searching for decent Mexican food in China for years.  This attempt was a failure, too.  The food was tiny (my burrito was the size of an egg roll), and it didn't taste very good.  However, we followed it up with some really good pizza at a different bar.

I ended the trip by eating a great English breakfast at an outdoor cafe in the French Concession.

All together, I had a great time.  The weather was great, the food was great, and I had great friends to go with.  My next trip will be to Suzhou in June, and I'll try to post about it quickly.

Nanjing trip 1

In April, I went to visit Nanjing with a few friends.  Nanjing is a huge city, the biggest city in Jiangsu province.  There was a lot to do and see.  We made the most of our overnight trip.  So, there will be a few posts.

As is our tradition, our first stop after check-in was to eat some Western food.  This time we ate Papa John's pizza.  That might not seem like much, but the only pizza that I've had since coming to China was Pizza Hut (which I don't really like).  Papa John's has never tasted so good.

After gorging ourselves on pizza, we went to see the famous Confucius Temple, and the Nanjing City Wall (discussed in other posts).  At night, we went out for more food and drink.  One of the places we went had a great Filipino band playing covers of American and English songs.  It was a blast.

The next day, I went to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum.  They did an impressive job of memorializing the atrocities committed in Nanjing by the Japanese.  It was an eye-opening experience.  At the end of the museum, there was a place for people to write their own stories, or those of their family members.  The massive, two-story room was full floor to ceiling with binders of the recollections of victims.  The museum is a must-see if you're ever in Nanjing.

Please check out the other posts for more pictures.

Nanjing Trip 2--Confucius Temple

The Confucius Temple in Nanjing was very impressive.  It was originally built in the eleventh century, but had to be rebuilt, most recently after it was destroyed during WWII.  It is a large complex that includes a school of Confucianism.

One hall was filled with panels made of jade and other materials depicting the life of Confucius.  It was hard to get decent pictures because of the glass, but here are a few.

Overall, it was really cool.

Nanjing Trip 3-- City Wall

We visited the Nanjing City Walls on the trip, and they were amazing.  As I understand, Nanjing is the only city in China that still has most of its original walls.  The Nanjing walls were built in the 1300s.  It took more than 25 years and over a million workers to build them.  They run for around 35 km.

We walked along a portion of the wall and I was amazed by how well they have held up over time.

It was really cool to see the modern Nanjing skyline from the ancient walls.

Wuxi Trip

In March, I went on a short trip to Wuxi with one other teacher.  We got off the bus, checked in, and went out to eat.  I do like Chinese food, but after eating it every day, finding Western food is a top priority.  We went to an amazing Italian restaurant.  The place was run by an Italian immigrant and all of the ingredients were imported from Italy.  I got the cannelloni.  It was heaven!

After that amazing lunch, we checked out the Old Street area of Wuxi.

In the Old Street area, there was a temple called Nanchan Temple.  My friend said that he'd been around there before, but he couldn't find the "way in."  Luckily, I saw this helpful sign:

The temple was really beautiful.  We even got to see an actual service going on (no pictures of that).  Here are some pictures of the temple:

We also went to the silk museum.  Wuxi was a major player in the silk trade for a long time.  However, the museum was pretty bad.  It just had some replicas of various silk-related items.  So, we followed it up by going to a Belgium Beer Bar.  Good beer is hard to find in China, but this place was stocked.  For the beer fans out there, I had a Delirium Tremens, and by British friend enjoyed a pint of Boddington's.

Overall, it was a great trip!

I'll try to post about my trips to Nanjing and Shanghai as soon as possible.