We Wish You A Mao-ey Christmas

Visit to Suzhou

The city of Suzhou was amazing with its many gardens and canals.  It was a bit crowded at some of the gardens but well worth the effort to see the place.

The first garden was the Lingering Garden which as a few hundred years old.  This is the residence of the owner as of a couple hundred years ago.

One of my favorite parts of the nice Chinese gardens are the many miniature trees.  I'll refrain from calling them by their Japanese names because the Chinese are quick to point out that they have been cultivating this style of planting since long before the Japanese had.  And given that historically the Japanese descended from the Chinese it is hard to argue the contrary.  Regardless of what you call them, I marvel at how they manage to grow these ancient little trees of all varieties.

I loved the mental image of "omnivorously" putting waste into the garbage can.

There are often musicians playing for the enjoyment of the visitors.  This garden had this artist and one out on a boat being paddled around in a small pond.

This is Tiger Hill park.  The pagoda above is at the top of the hill.  This is a very unique design unlike any other I have seen in China.  It looks more like something I'd see in cambodia or Thailand.  Breathe in.....Breathe out.....

This is one of favorite photos.  Chinese girls like wearing colorful clothing.

Okay, the camera isn't crooked and I'm not leaning.  The Pagoda has a significant tilt.

I loved the many, many, many flowers......achoooo......
This is at the Humble Administrators Garden which is an ironic given that the Humble Administrator's garden is a huge section of the old city.  The Humble Administrator was loaded to afford all of this.

And of course they have many miniature, sculpted trees.....fascinating.

Suzhou is the most popular place in China to get married...followed closely by Hangzhou.  Suzhou has a long street lined with wedding dress shops.  Red is the traditional color for good luck.  White dresses reflect the strong influence of western culture.  Many of the young people prefer a less expensive western style wedding with a white dress.  A wealthy couple may buy two or more wedding dresses and have pictures taken in the traditional red dress and also with the white dress.

We took another boat ride along the canals of Suzhou

The water wasn't the cleanest.  Sewage wasn't dumped into the canals but often sink drains or water from cleaning buckets are thrown into the canal.  On the narrow section they warn us to keep the windows on the boats closed because people in the homes are often throwing water from a window into the canal.  There were a couple of close calls on our boat.

As we drive away from Suzhou I took a picture looking back at the ancient city area.  The ancient city is layed out as a square surrounded by a moat.  You can see one of the corners of the city with moats going down both sides and the watch tower at the corner of the old city walls.  There is little left of the actual city wall but the moats and canals are still there.

Trip to Hangzhou City and Xitang Village

During the Chinese May day holiday I traveled with the BYU China Teachers group to the cities of Hangzhou (hang joe) and Suzhou (Sue joe), and the ancient Yangtze River delta village of Xitang (she tang).  This area is the Venice of the Orient because of the myriad canals and rivers criss-crossing the cities and the countryside in general.

The first two days were spend in Hangzhou and Xitang.  The following pictures are from visits to those two places.  I'll talk about the visit to Suzhou in a separate blog.

Hangzhou's streets and canals are lined with trees and flowers.  The architecture is distinctive.

Stone and cement block arched bridges are everywhere throughout the city.

Many Chinese stroll along the banks of the canals and rivers.

This canal is the moat of the ancient city of Hangzhou.  You can see one of the only remaining segments of the old city wall behind me across the moat.  The Chinese temple-like structure is the old city gate in that segment of the old wall.

View from on top of the old city wall.

Along the waterfront of West Lake there was a Las Vegas style music, light and fountain show.  Just above the jets of water you can see one of the temples on a hill overlooking West Lake.  West Lake has been apart of Chinese legends and lore for over 2000 years.  It is the most popular destination for China's romantically inclined.  Hangzhou and Suzhou according to Chinese folklore were created as the closest things to being in Heaven in China....even in their ancient poetry.

Tour boats for sailing on West Lake.  We didn't ride on the Dragon boat in the picture.

There are many parks, paths and bridges that connect the myriad small islands along the east side of West Lake.  Many gardens decorate the islands.  So although it was a busy tourist time there was plenty of room.  You didn't feel crowded.

Did I mention there were many scenic bridges?

Outside of the city enroute to the village of Xitang were many small rural areas with these homes.  I haven't seen this style of housing in rural China.  Obviously the farmers that live in these rural homes are wealthy.  In fact, the spires with the 3 spheres on them is representative of the amount of money the owner has....an open boast of their wealth.  The small ball is a half million chinese dollars, the next size up is one million, and the big ball is 2 million.  So these owners have more than 3.5 million dollars which is about a half million US.

The village of Xitang had narrow alleys and many sizes of canals.  There has been a village at this site for  well over 1300 years.  There are 104 bridges in the town the oldest of which was built over 1000 years ago.

Cruising the Yangtze River

Our trip down the Changjiang river, or Yangtze river started on a high speed from Chengdu to Chongqing.  The train cruises along at about 196 km/hr or a 117 mph...and the train is smooth and quiet.  These elevated high speed passenger rails criss-cross China, but this is not the bullet trains that are along the east coast.  They are much faster than this high-speed line.

We took the train to the city of Chongqing which is the largest city in China and the world at 33 million.  But that is a little misleading.....  The city has a large area but then its 33 million takes in a large area that includes other cities.  Nevertheless, it is a big industrial city at the confluence of a couple of rivers including the Yangtze.  Actually, both rivers in this view are the Yangtze, that center part of the city is just a large island in the river.


The Yangtze river is the longest river in China and the 3rd longest in the World.

We started the tour at the civic center in Chongqing.  It was great having Indy and Melissa to share the experience with.

The river level behind 3 gorges dam is about 60 feet below the normal water level.  They let it go down in preparation for the late spring runoff from Sichuan and the many mountains.  The rains pick up late Spring in Sichuan and then the mountain snowmelt runoff from the Himalaya plateau is late spring.

A bust of General Stillwell...the American in charge of the Flying Tigers.  It was a large airlift transporting war supplies into China who was our ally when they were fighting Japan.  Japan invaded and was fighting China years before Pearl Harbor was attacked and we actively entered WW II.  There is a Flying TIger museum here in Chongqing

Elephants were used to load the planes for the airlift in Burma and India.  China used to have many elephants but that was about 3000 years ago.  In the video below an artist at the museum paints a traditional chinese flower art.  It is surprising how fast he actually is.  More time goes into thinking about it, visualizing the painting, and then he attacks the page to let the painting out.

This is part of the overland option to flying from India or Burma across the Himalayas.  It is not surprising that flying was chosen even though it was hard for the planes of the day to make it across the Himalayas.

We enjoyed watching this artist make glass art.

Indy was a popular object of photography where ever we went.  Everyone wanted him to be in their picture.  This little boy's parents wanted him in the picture with Indy more than the little boy wanted to be in the picture..."Now, why is this a good idea?" wonders the little boy...

It was quite a walk to get out to the cruise ships.  Ours is the one on the left.  You first had to go down about 100 feet of steps to get to the walkway that wends it way onto onto the pontoons and then onto the ship.

I finally figured out where Indy gets his clowning from....it must run in the genes. 

A closeup of the section of the walk way to get to the ship

I avoided what that guy was selling...it didn't seem to help his health at all.

Our first stop was Fengdu.  There were a collection of Buddhist and Taoist Temples that once   overlooked the old town of Fengdu on the mountain tops.  This is a picture of the peak with the temple of heaven.  We were on the adjacent peak which had more temples including the Ghost city and the temple of Hell which was a collection of the different oriental beliefs in the path after death.  Everyone goes to hell in their belief system in order to be judged and then you hopefully get to move on from there.

The old city of Fengdu is now submerged by  the 3 Gorges Dam Reservoir.  50,000 people were relocated  in 2003 to the south bank.

These are good guardians that keep little demons like the one under foot away from you and me.

This is a good example of peer pressure where I got pressed into service to lift a hemisphere of iron that I figured was nearly 400 pounds.  But since I was younger and larger of the group I got roped into trying this.  Job #1 was to look earnest without jeopardizing my back in anyway.  Afterall I didn't want to hire porters to move our luggage to and from the cruise ships up all those steps because I hurt my back.  I later learned I was wrong.  It weighed closer to 500 pounds.  There was a local farmer who is renown for his ability to first roll the hemisphere around in the groove and then slide it to the top of the little pinnacle.  See the picture below and you can see the hemisphere balanced on the top on the pinnacle.  My back hurt just watching him!

There is our ship back down the hill.  It was nice to know that it is much easier to hike to the top of the mountain with the temples now that the reservoir has been filled behind the dam.

It was kinda weird having the temple of heaven watching us as we spent our time in hell and with ghosts.  Perhaps there are some life's analogies that one could draw from while all the crowds visit hell and leave the heaven temple relatively unvisited.

Our tour guide through the ghost town and hell.

Of course you can stop and worship at the buddhist temples enroute to hell.....the chinese ask for their blessings on them so that there visit to hell will not become unlucky.

More buddhist images.

Now we are with the "ghosts" or spirits that line the path to the temple of hell.  Each ghost represents something.

Clearly the most popular ghost as evidenced by the well worn buttocks of the crying child across the knee of the other ghost.  Parents always pat the buttocks to ensure that their children behave properly.  I didn't bother; it was too late!

Melissa spent an unusually long time spanking the ghost buttocks.....hhhmmmmm....shall I speculate.  No, I'm just kidding.

You have to ask Melissa the meaning of balancing on this stone before entering the temple of hell.

Okay, we are now entering where judgement takes place.

A mural of demons ripping naked humans apart.....or it is a picture of the Beijing subway station...I forget which

There are many beings that judge the Chinese...get a load of the guy on the end...

A close up.....I don't know about you but I think I might die laughing if encountering this guy!

Now we know how they heat hell!

In the Buddhist hells there are many modes of torture that demons perform depending on the nature of your sins.  I am not sure which sin warrants disembowelment...perhaps gluttony?

I didn't put the other 10 ways to be killed in case someone actually looked at these pictures!

We were on a small cruise ship compared to those that ply the seven seas.  The large ships have large stages and dedicated entertainment personnel.  The entertainment was pretty nice on the ship but these young people had to do double duty working in other departments like serving you food in the restaurant or doing your laundry, or running the ship.

The costumes were very pretty!

I was intrigued by the lighting of the camera flash on the far side of the stage when I took this picture and the picture below.

At this stop they had a series of escalators to reach the ship.  The escalators are in segments so that segments can be removed and stored near the top depending on the water level in the reservoir.  As you can see one more segment can be added to reach farther down.

We often found translations to be quite interesting

My "bright eyes"....Melissa!

I am some where headed to someplace.....okay so I should have made better notes.

There is a lot of shipping that travels the Yangtze

Every time I looked at this statue I couldn't help but think of Brian...  If Brian were born 1500 years ago he would be this Chinese general

This vantage point is the place where armies guarded the entrance to the first of the 3 gorges.  This first gorge is memorialized on the Chinese 10 yuan bill, see below.

And there were monkeys ......or at least one monkey....in the tree on this small island.

Does anyone know how to rotate a video?  Neither do I

These russian designed hydrofoils are everywhere.  Marian and I rode one in St Petersburg bay.  I say one on the Mekong river in old Saigon and you can go for a ride on one through the 3 gorges.  A faster way to see the gorges rather than on a cruise ship.

Now we are entering the first gorge on the cruise ship.  Indy is in the wheelhouse navigating.  We are up by the life rafts

The second gorge is on the other side of the rainbow bridge.  It is the longest of the 3 gorges.

The water was surprisingly clean.  There are a lot of similarities between cruising though the gorges and a fjord in Norway.  Except the food was better on the Norway cruise!  Ooopps...that comment is the sin that will get me disemboweled!

This interesting cave supposedly goes back about 5 km!

Bridge and highway being built across this small tributary river.  Notice that it is the same design of the bridge below and 10 gazzillion other bridges here in China

On one excursion we went and an old-fashioned paddle boats that plied the Yangtze long ago.  We were required to wear life jackets....one size fits all....clearly mine and Indy's were equally satisfactory fit! ...unless of course you wanted to see something or if you wanted to float after falling overboard.

One of local ethnic groups had a custom where they would put their dead in coffins high in the cliffs above the river.  They've for doing this for hundreds of years but no longer.  There are stiff a few places where you can see old coffins positioned high up on the cliffs.  It is a mystery how they rigged these in place.

This artist paints the inside of glass bottles and other glass shapes.  Traditionally this art form got started painting the inside of snuff bottles.

This artist has an adoring chinese fan watching his craft.  Later you will see this same cute girl dancing with Indy... But Indy has a girlfriend in the States....will she find out?

Indy got nabbed to participate in a game...later we will see him dance.

There were two winners...Indy and the lady.

I had some difficulty loading these videos.  Hopefully they work.

After going through the second gorge we eventually get to 3 Gorges Dam.  It is a large dam...largest in the world.  The third gorge is on the downstream side of the dam.

Many ships ply the Yangtze.  There are two sets of locks, 5 locks each and each lock lifts up to 5 ships at a time over 30 feet.  This is the downstream side of the locks.  Due to lock maintenance there was a backlog of commercial shipping awaiting going through the locks so our cruise ended here and we took a bus through the last of the 3 gorges enroute to our flight back.

Our cruise ship is one of the ships in this flotilla on the reservoir upstream of the dam  Notice the angled tramway for the blue and green trams that run up the slope to haul us from the ships to the bus access at the top of the river bank.  Another shot looking up at the trams below.

The dam is off in the distance.

The river downstream of the dam is much narrower.  The 3rd gorge is in the far distance through those mountains.

Big dam!

You can see the tops of a few ships in the one lock as they are being raised to enter the next higher lock.

The cruise ships are on the lake behind dam.  Just to the left of Melissa's head is the pier with the several cruise ships berthed.

Indy with Karen Mosley.  Indy was very popular with all of the BYU teachers that were traveling with us.

So the stop at the dam ends our cruise.  They actually had pretty good food on this cruise ship. This is one of three groups of BYU teachers and friends that were on this trip.

The trip from the dam passed many rural areas.  This is an orchard & cemetary.  The tombs are decorated.  This trip is on the Tomb Sweeping or Tomb Cleaning holiday.  Chinese try to travel to where their ancestors are buried and clean and decorate their tombs.  In the rural area you are likely to find tombs in orchards and right out in the fields near the homes of their families.  In the cities there is more control and regulation on where people are buried but in the rural areas people are pretty free to do what they want.

A field of rapeseed along the bank of the river.

With the surplus of labor in China, mechanized farming is the exception.  Cultivating with the help of oxen or water buffalos is still the norm.

I'm not sure why the color coded power towers but they are interesting.

This is the only large, modern tractor I've saw working in the field.  Actually this tractor is nearly as big as the paddy it is working in.

There were tombs along the banks of the river too.

This is the third gorge.  The bus only went along a portion of the third gorge.

Melissa, Indy and I spent the next night in the city of Wuhan in a hotel we apparently weren't supposed to be in.  We went along the Yangtze river waterfront in the city for a walk.  We bought, lit and released a chinese lantern.  It is heated by a sterno-like fuel pad.  It is surprising that more of these paper lanterns don't just burst into flames because the paper gets very hot.  They allow you to release this incendenary devices right in the middle of the city and you can watch them go up among the high rises.   I guess they don't have problems with these things crashing and burning down portions of the city.

It is also a tradition to dedicate these to loved ones who are struggling or who may have passed away to carry your pray or wishes heaven-ward.