Lovely pictures in Forbidden City with mom!

And sharing food on the streets of Beijing!

Most of the Route from Xi’an to Beijing, and On the wall – one picture said it all!

As far as steps go, I did the most. In total, there were supposed to be 500 step. Instead, there were 504 going up, I had to go up and down 5 times each time I did 36 and to go down, the way I went, I was the only one, there were 524 steps. They were hard to count and it may not have been worth the effort. These “500” steps led to a stage like thing close to the top of one of the hills. From there, we could see where we were riding the boat yesterday. It was so different from the top that at first I did not believe them. Before the steps we stopped on the side of the road and looked at another place to view just that time, we did not need to climb up the stairs. At that viewing place we could count 116 peaks (of the hills) and at the top of the stairs, there were more. So many I did not bother to count or we would have been stuck there another hour. Up top was the place where I realized how big the river actually was. It was too bad that it was cloudy. If not, we could have seen way far out and the color could have been a little better. Once in a while the sun would pop out but still through a tiny layer of clouds so there was not any blue sky. I know that it would have been a little nicer with the sun but the heat was great so I was glad (and I did not need to worry about the pictures for dad and mom take them).

Mom taking a picture that I did not need to take

That would be me and Leendert at the top.

Going up the stairs.

View from the top.

We were taken from the hotel at 8:30. Though the trip was mainly for the rice terraces, we made a few other stops. The first was just a pit stop for the guide to get the tickets to some things however, we admired the beautiful man made waterfall following the crystal clear reflective water (pictures 1&2). The first “real stop we made was in a little town of 200 people. Their culture was very different to the one of a normal Chinese. They think of their hair as their longevity so they grow it out and keep it clean all the time (picture 3). Then we got to the Longji rice terraces. There we first took a bubble up to the top of the hills (picture 4). We then took a long path through the hills on a little stone path leading to absolutely gorgeous views (picture 5). After we went back to the hotel. The last picture is from on the way over. This was approximately 2 times clearer than the way back (picture 6).

Normal life in Shanghai is not exactly what you would expect. China is known for being extremely densely populated. So what you most likely do not expect is (picture 1) to leave a metro through a huge exit with literally nobody present. Then if you have a guess what we saw after we left the station (except for people) we have a picture for you (picture two) though you probably already saw this because often people look at the pictures before reading. You may look at the picture and think, Wow! That is crazy!, but we prefer Viet Nam where they would do the same with fridges and on two wheels, not three. The last picture (picture 3) is just a family shot on a bridge with a view on some of the buildings. By the way, if you were thinking Hey, people told me it was extremely smoggy in Shanghai. I would like you to remember that many of these pictures have been enhanced to please the eye.

As usual, we went on the metro to, wherever we went. we got out at the station called  ‘East Nanjing Road’ and went around the old part off Shanghai

All the roofs were with the little twirls at the end and on some there were little statues.

It was a large crowded tourist trap with about a dozen tourists. there were many little souvenir shops (many were hard not to go in (at least for me)).

In the centre or somewhere near the centre was a little pond and many (about 4) ducks. Some were larger than others.

At lunch, we ate on a small street which was located behind all the touristy things, in total of about 100 to 200 people and 3 other people that were not locals. we ate noodles (which tasted like calamari) and AWESOME dumplings.