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Strauch/Bruno Web Photo Album Photos are arranged in chronological order with the most recent photos first. Select which thumbnail you want to see by clicking on it. To get back to this page, use your browser back arrow. Each batch of thumbnails has a brief description. A screen size of 800x600 pixels is used as a base but 640x480 and 1024x768 screens work fine too. Email us Tom, Laura, Matt or Kelsey. Our Trip to China |
| 10/17/2004-10/20/2004 We arrived in Beijing on Sunday minus a suitcase, which was subsequently delivered to our hotel the next evening. Thank you Air Canada!! Monday we visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We had dinner at the famous Peking Duck restaurant that cooks 2000 ducks a day. We are one of the few Caucasians traveling by ourselves and not on a tour. Beijing is huge, smoggy and teeming with people. Everyone has been extremely friendly and helpful to us. They love to practice their English. Tuesday we went to the Great Wall and to Ming's Tombs. The bus tour for $6.00 included two stops at the Great Wall and two stops at Ming's Tomb from 8:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. We were worn out by the end of the day and constantly pestered by street vendors. The day overall was fun and entertaining. Before we left Beijing on the sleeper train for Xian, we visited the Lama Temple and Confusius Temple. |
| 10/21/2004-10/22/2004 We
took the sleeper train from Beijing to Xian to see the 2000-year-old
lifesize terra cotta soldiers (thousands of them).
These soldiers guard the tomb of the emperor of the Qin dynasty.
Xian still has its city walls along
with a Bell Tower in the middle of the city. On the way to the
Terracotta soldiers we went up Mount Lishan and visited the emperor's
tomb. |
| 10/23/2004-10/25/2004 Flew to Chongqing to catch a three-day boat cruise down the Yangtze River and through the world's biggest dam - Three Gorges. There were many stops along the way. Fengdu, the ghost city, has a tacky ghost exhibit. That town really will be a underwater ghost town when they finish filling the dam. The whole town is deserted except for the vendors. Our biggest side trip was on the Little Three Gorges where we got on progressively smaller boats. It was a nice break from the wide Yangtze. The dam is almost complete. We went through four locks in our boat with just one more lock that needs to be finished. Quite an amazing dam and gorges. The boat let us off at Yichang where we caught a bus to Wuhan. |
| 10/26/2004-10/27/2004 Wuhan is a modern, bustling city with nice parks and lakes. We visited the Yellow Crane Tower Park and Sun Yat-sen's military headquarters. From Wuhan, we caught a train for a 14-hour ride using "soft seats" to get us to Guilin. The soft seats were not soft and were very uncomfortable. |
| 10/28/2004-10/29/2004 Guilin is the land of the karst limestone formations. We took a day trip to Yangshou which is about 40 miles south of the Guilin on the Li River. That is a small town and much better place to get a feel for all the karsts. This was our favorite spot on the trip. |
| 10/30/2004-10/31/2004 Our sleeper bus to Hong Kong was an experience. It was supposed to be a 12 hour bus ride but turned into 17 hours. In the end the bus broke down about twenty miles from our destination. We had hours of delays in the middle of the night because of road construction. We were wiped out by the time we got to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was really something, very western. It is a contrast to mainland China. The view at night from Kowloon looking across the bay to Hong Kong is beautiful with all the lights and tall buildings. We had a hitch with our visa. Our three books and a travel agent said we could get back into mainland China on the one entry visa but that was not the case. We had to get all new visas but we had a good travel agent who got it all done. We did not have to spend any extra time in Hong Kong. |
| 11/1/2004-11/3/2004 We were glad to get back to the mainland. The people are much friendlier here. We flew into Hangzhou, only our second flight in China. This is a town with a large lake and parks all around. Things are much better maintained in this part of China. We took a day trip out to a tea plantation. Again it was good to get out of the city. |
| 11/4/2004-11/5/2004 Yesterday we took a two hour train trip (soft seats and this time they really were) to Shanghai. The hotel we stayed in only had their deluxe rooms available so we stayed in the nicest and most expensive room we have stayed in on the trip for $85. Shanghai is a lot like Hong Kong but not as western. It has all the tall buildings and nice night time skyline. We took an underground tourist train to the other side of the river to get a close up of the TV tower and modern side of Shanghai. |
| 11/6/2004-11/7/2004 Back to Beijing on the sleeper train from Shanghai. It was fun coming back to a familiar town and favorite hotel. We went to a couple places we missed on our first visit there. We got to see the Great Embalmed One himself Mao in his mausoleum, Temple of Heaven in Tiantan Park and Jingshan Park which looks down on the Forbidden City. Our last day Sunday we flew out of Beijing at 5:45pm and were back home in our house in Salem by 6pm. Not bad! We had a great trip but it was nice to back in our own bed. |
