An important reason for my visit to Hangzhou was to visit a recently restored historical site dating to the Southern Song Dynasty: Deshou Palace.
But that attraction did not open until 9:30, so first we casually ambled around a lovely nearby neighborhood.
Drum Tower
Deshou Palace was an absolutely wonderful site. The building was a reconstruction carfully designed to match the original appearance. It was paced full of artifacts as well as artwork related to the history and culture if the era. Various panels provided text that gave historical background .
An interesting modern twist was a huge interactive video display with a seemingly random collection if Chinese written characters that floated downwards. If you touched a character, it triggered the screen to display a relevant poem!
Deshou Palace
Historically this palace had been a sort if retirement quarters for the emperor. It had included extensive gardens of which only a small section has yet been restored .
A beautiful place! I could easily have spent a whole day there. It was a shame that our train tickets forced us onward to Tongling, where Jim wanted to show me his hometown!
First I spent some time exploring the area around the Grand Canal. I viewed the canal from walkways along its bank. I also rode a “water- bus” to the picturesque Gongchen bridge.
Later I went to the far side of beautiful West Lake, and visited Leifeng Pagoda.
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Still later I met up with my good friend Jim ( the ” young scholar”), and we returned to Hangzhou by one of the wooden tourist boats that cross West Lake.
Tears fom the sky fell in torrents, driving visitors to seek any cover they could find. Tied to the dock these small boats echoed the pitter patter of falling raidrops. And they creaked and groaned in their helpless captivity, unable to fulfill the meaning to their existence.
Nanjing: the “Southern Capital”. This was my fourth visit to this former imperial capital city (also capital for a while during the Republic).
During this visit my focus was seeing my friend Violet, and a pair of historical sites related to Zheng He, the renowned admiral during the early Ming Dynasty whose immense “treasure fleet” explored southeast Asia, India, and even areas of Africa’s eastern shores! Unlike typical “western” expeditions, the goals were trade, goodwill, and world investigation.
Unlike the later Christopher Columbus, Zheng He actually *did* arrive in India, and was not so stupid as to confuse new, unknown regions with India.
Nor did Zheng He spread disease and enslave the people he met.
In Shanghai I visited my good friend Bamboo, and her husband Sun Yiyueh (Cyrus). This made me very happy! I met Bamboo many years ago on my second trip to Nanjing. Some of you are familiar with the various videos I produce to help “westerners” learn a bit about China. Bamboo has played a crucial role in the success of the videos. As originally produced, these used the “voice” from “Google translate” so demonstrate the Chinese pronunciation of various place-names. That Google audio was pretty terrible, and I wanted to improve it to better server the viewers. I remembered that Bamboo had done extensive work on Chinese television, so I asked her if there was any chance she’d help with the needed audio improvements. She graciously agreed to give me assistance and over the years has continued to provide audio clips for that series. This makes a huge difference for the viewers!
I suppose I “don’t get out much”. I had never seen such a thing, but starting with the hotel in Shanghai, I encountered robots at each Chinese hotel I stayed in! There are robots that vacuum the floor, and others who either pick up or deliver items to guests’ rooms! How cool is that!!!!???
Well, it was a “long haul”, but I made it to Shanghai. Getting there involved a 2.5 hour drive to Denver from our (new) hometown in Pueblo, Colorado. An overnight stay in a hotel in the general vicinity of Denver International Airport. then up before the roosters to catch a 6:00 AM flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth. There I boarded a flight to Shanghai. Ironically, about 75 minutes into the flight, the airplane flew directly over Pueblo… my starting point the day before! (I saw this on the “real time” in-flight monitor screen on the airplane!
March 20 – May 6 I was REALLY happy to go to China again! I was able to see a lot of friends and colleagues while I was there! East to West, North to South. I visited one of the world’s most modern and developed cities (Shanghai). I also visited Lanping County, a place that had been the poorest area in China. But government efforts to help the people there move out of poverty were wildly successful. It is a lovely place!
Click on the photo to open it. Then you will be able to enlarge as desired.
Here was my schedule: March 20: Fly from Denver to Dallas/FortWorth transfer to flight headed to Shanghai Pudong Airport March 21: Arrive in Shanghai March 21-22: Shanghai- March 23-24: Nanjing March 25-26: Hangzhou March 27-28: Tongling, Anhui March 29-31: Zhengzhou April 1: Datong, Shanxi April 2: Taiyuan, Shanxi April 3-7: Nanyang, Henan April 8-11: Xi’an, Shaanxi April 12-16: Yinchuan, Ningxia April 17: Lanzhou, Gansu April 18-20: Chengdu, Sichuan April 21-23: Guiyang, Guizhou April 24-25: Dali, Yunnan April 26-28: Lanping, Yunnan April 29: Kunming, Yunnan April 30: Nanning, Guangxi May 1: Shenzhen May 2-3: Xiamen, Fujian May 4-5: Shanghai May 6 Fly back to the United States! Shanghai to Dallas/FortWorth Dallas/FortWorth to Denver then home to Pueblo!
Well, it was time for me to once again get out of town and start some traveling! I hadn’t been to Spain since the springtime, so I had my sights set on a trip there.
I decided that on the way, I’d visit my daughter (and her husband) in Wilmington, Delaware, and also my brother in New Jersey.
Trains, trains, trains!
I had some Amtrak rail-travel credits burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided to go by train. The distances were long, and American trains are excruciatingly slow, quite unlike the high-speed options in Spain and China. So, to get from Denver to Wilmington (through Chicago and Washington, D.C.) would take three days! Well, off I go!
First it was the bus, then Denver’s “light rail” to get to “Union Station”, which was all decked out for the holidays, and buzzing with activity!
The train was late. Ah Amtrak, SLOW *and* LATE!
So, I had a beer and some fries to kill time and take the edge off my hunger.
The train finally arrived, so it was time to board the clunky, vintage (out of date) double-decker coaches.
I had a sleeper-compartment, so that meant I would travel in the lap of luxury! Well, sort of… the “roomette” is a bit cramped, but at least it is private space. And traveling in a sleeper, all meals are included! Hello dining car!
Of course, since I had snacked at the station, I did not have much of an appetite, so I just ate a salad, and half a dessert.
Th next morning, we were traversing the great plains. One of my favorite spots along the Denver-Chicago route is crossing the Mississippi River! Many years ago, we used to see Bald Eagles along the river, but not recently, and not this trip.
Eventually we arrived in Chicago’s Union Station. The train platforms are dark, cramped, and smell of diesel fumes. Pretty hellish. Please, let me out of here and get me to the remodeled magnificence of the public areas of the station!
Well, the “Great Hall” did have some nice holiday displays, but Chicago’s station has none of the vibrancy of Denver’s remodeled station. Basically it was new walls, new paint, and no new features.
Time to brave the cold and walks the nearby downtown Chicago streets!
Outside, the weather was actually pleasant! Every other time Rhonda and I stopped over in Chicago, there were freezing cold winds and often snow. I had looked forward to visiting the showroom of the “Paragon Book Gallery”, a specialty book seller that I used to go to in New York City with my Dad. It carries a vast stock of obscure books related to Asia. But alas, I had contacted them ahead of time, and they do not currently have any physical store-front, doing all their business online while they keep their eyes out for some suitable retail location. Next time!
As I lazily wandered the streets I did pass a few nice restaurants. When I saw a Potbelly sandwich shop, (which I love) I considered picking up a sandwich “to go” that I could eat on the train. But why? As a sleeping car passenger, all the fancy dinner options on the dining care are available at not extra cost!
So I returned to the lounge and waited until it was time to board my next train, heading to Washington D.C.
OK, mega-fail! Some background. America is doing its darnedest to kill off the few remaining long distance train routes, and push all travel to heavily polluting aircraft, and heavily polluting private cars plying the highways. So far, try as Amtrak may to make riding the train a disagreeable experience, people still ride the rails. So, in a more recent move, they have started eliminating kitchens for the dining cars. Now all passengers except those in sleeping cars are banned from the dining car. And rather than cooked food, they offer some crappy TV-dinners. To go along with this new experience, they hand you the new “Flexible Dining Menu”. The dining room staff, in an effort to not be ejected from the moving train by passengers, did offer a free beer along with “supper”. Well, the beer was good, the food terrible. Bummer! I really wished I had known ahead of time and picked up a sandwich in Chicago!
So nice how they added a chintzy metallic finish to the fork and spoon so that it would match the (actual) metal knife.
And no more pancakes, waffles, eggs etc for breakfast. Now you choose which boxed cereal you want. Well, the banana was real. The coffee? None available. I had to go back to my sleeper car and bring some from there.
Ah! Washington, D.C.! My birthplace! I was able to check my bags and wander a bit. Union Station… the Capitol building…
I decided to head to the White House to see what was shakin’
Machine gun toting cops (don’t dare take their photos!) were keeping the protesting crazies at bay.
Well, this is America. The tens of millions of people who are disgusted by the actions of the occupant of the White House, (who sneaked in the back door with three million votes less than his opponent), just spend their time jogging, staring at sitcoms on the boob-tube, watching sports, and (mostly) sleeping.
From Washington I took the Northeast Regional to Wilmington, Delaware, where Andrea, Jimmy, and Rhonda picked me up at the station. (Rhonda did not come on the train, opting to travel to the east by plane)
Andrea and Jimmy
Andrea and Jimmy had moved into a new house since I last visited them. Nice place. We spent the first evening listening to Jimmy’s records. Yep, records… those vinyl disks. Remember them? Heard your grandpa mention them? ha ha.
From Wilmington, I next took a train to Trenton (Capital of New Jersey), where my brother picked me up and drove me back to his house in Pennington. We had a great weekend, starting with a few slices of pizza at “Beniamino’s” in the Montgomery Shopping Center. This is the new incarnation of pizza at the old “Rudolfo’s” which I adored. They told me that the guy who last ran Rudolfo’s, who since moved back to Italy, does stop by when he is in town.
Chris and I had a great time driving around New Jersey, then Pennsylvania, then New Jersey again. Lots of memories from our youth! We even got near the site of an old Boy Scout camp that our parents packed us off to a few years during the summer.
When the day came from my flight to Spain I took the train up to Newark Airport. Good lord! the terminal was out of control. Everything there seemed to require interaction with one of the thousands of fixed tablet devices positioned *everywhere*. You couldn’t order food at a restaurant by just telling a waiter/ess what you wanted. You had to negotiate an inane set of screens. I couldn’t figure it out Neither could anyone around me. So staff and to press the screen selections for everyone. And then, in the end, it disconnected the humans who worked there from the customers. Every person around me (and including me) ended up with a problem with the order and the “customer service” ended up horrible, because the “computer” was the waiter, not the person. Out of control technology. “Fixing” a system what was not broken, and in the end, breaking it.
Peter with the iconic “Oriental Pearl” building in the background
Shanghai Tower
At 632 meters of height (2,073 ft), the Shanghai tower is the tallest building in China and the second tallest in the world (as of 2019). The public observation deck is on the 118th floor and it was exciting to be on the world’s second fastest elevator, with my ears popping while we ascended!
Shanghai Tower (on right), with the (perhaps!) more visually interesting Jin Mao Tower to the left
Maglev Airport Rail Link
China chose the German company Siemens to build a 30 kilometer “demonstration” maglev railway line that terminates at the Pudong airport in Shanghai. The technology is impressive, and the train is rated to go as fast as 430 km/hr. As a demonstration implementation, it only runs at this high speed for a while each morning. I took the conventional metro line to the airport and then rode the maglev line back as far as it went, completing my journey on the metro again. I rode in the afternoon, at “only” 300 km/hr. It was still and exciting and different sort of experience!
Model of the maglev train and “track”The actual train
The ride was smooth and it was a bit exciting the way the line “banked” into curves!
Out and about
Based on various travel guidebooks i consulted, the shopping area adjacent to Yu Gardens seemed like a must-go attraction. The gardens themselves were closed due to some remodeling activity underway, so I went straight to the shopping sector. I was fairly disappointed. Brand-new “Qing Dynasty” buildings with glitzy silk, pearl, and souvenir stores, packed with people. More than anything, the crush of tourists in the area seemed ripe for pickpocket activity. I looked around a bit and left.
Yu Gardens shopping neighborhood
Nearby was a zone more to my taste: Tiny earthy shops with aggressive haggling and an eclectic variety of goods. I was really disappointed that the kite store did not have one small enough for me to pack in my suitcase! 🙁
Night Cruise on the Huangpu River
Just for fun I took a night cruise on one of the many boats plying the Huangpu River, passing between garishly lit skyscrapers on the Pudong side and brightly lit colonial period remnants of foreign dominance on the Puxi side. As the tourist boats sailed up and down the river, darkened cargo barges slipped silently by.
