Jan 18, 2008

Vanessa,

We had a great time coming back from our trip to China (Beijing - Xian - Louyang - Shanghai - Suzhou - HongKong). The travel agencies did a wonderful job in booking the 5/4 star hotels in each city. The buffet included in the hotels are more than plentiful.The pre-selected food sometimes are too greasy to our stomach. However, we liked a la carte choices to food we are much familar.

The soft seat train from Xian to Suzhou was very interesting & we met with someone speaking French with my son and daughter. The silk factory in Suzhou is most enlightening. By the suggestion of my son, we substituted the Badaling Great Wall/Ming Tomb to a trip to JinShanLing walking back to Simatai by climbing (literally, on hands and knees and sometimes ... on my butt) the Great Wall of China!!

The guides in Beijing (Nancy), Xian (Carol), Luoyang (Jamie), Suzhou (Jo) and Hongkong (Jupiter) are very friendly and knowledgable. There were substitute in our tour guides and drivers at times but everything ran smoothly. The van's had plenty room for just 3 of us and are kept clean. We would like to have visited the Shanghai Pearl (across from the Bund), it looked fun. In our free time in Beijing on our own we visited the Silk Market to shop. However, we ran into typhoon in Hong Kong so Vitoria Peak was not so good to visit. There are several shopping opportunities the tour guides took us in each city, the qualities of goods are great just I failed to bring a bigger purse.

Thank goodness I was able to speak Mandarin while we were stuck in Beijing while an all night thunderstorm shut down the airport. We were able to finally get a flight to Xian the next day after 27 hours to continue our scheduled tour (so we spent our "free" day in the airport !!)

The show in Shanghai (acrobatic) was most wonderful. Most of the arranged food were not too impressive, comparing to food we are able to get in the States. However, we enjoyed the Beijing Duck (we can see the duck being cut up right next to our table). We found Sushi (in Beijing) and McDonald's (in HongKong) on our own. By the time in HongKong, we were craving for french fries !!!

This was a memorable China trip!!

Jeanne