Dana and I were lucky enough for a real treat during the China National Day holidays from Oct 1-10. Kevin came to visit on his first trip outside the US. We mainly stayed in Shanghai and did all the normal tourist stuff, nightlife, and food tours... but we did take a 1-day trip outside the city... just a few photos for your viewing pleasure...
We rented a car and driver to go about 2-3 hours West of Shanghai to the city of Hangzhou which has the very famous West Lake and many temples around it.
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Right next to the West Lake is the Yue Fei Temple. It was built in the year 1221 AD to commemorate Yue Fei.
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Most of you are wondering about what the heck a "Yue Fei" is, right? Well, enjoy your history lesson: Yue Fei was a young military general and warrior of great reknown who led the Southern Song Dynasty to victory over their northen China enemies around 1120 AD. Legend says that his mother tattooed the Chinese words 尽忠报国 (jìn zhōng bào guó) on his back, which means "Serve your country with utmost loyalty". Yue Fei is credited with potentially being the founder of XingYi and Eagle Claw styles of Kung Fu. He was executed at age 39... as usual the great warrior only fell due to the plotting of a woman, the Song Empress.
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Another very famous place to visit near the West Lake is called LingYin Temple, which is often translated as "Temple of the Soul's Retreat" and was founded in 328 AD.
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Although it still holds true for me that if you have seen one temple in Asia you can pretty much skip the rest, this place did have some nice greenery and hills around it with some cool grottos and buddha statues put into the stone around it which were cool. The entire trip around HZ would be much cooler if there weren't 1.3 billion Chinese around you... as usual anything cool is rendered annoying when it gets that crowded.
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Back in Shanghai, I took Kevin to the Shanghai World Financial Tower. It opened in 2008 and it is 492.0 meters (1,614.2 ft) tall, which made it the 2nd tallest building in the world after the one in Dubai, but still the tallest in China and in Asia. Of course, I had take the obligatory photo to show that the tallest structure in Asia is between my legs.
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You can go up to the top floor (100th floor) of the building to check out the city. It was a smoggy day unfortunately, but the view is still pretty cool and not bad for a $20 ticket per person. There is a bar on the 96th floor and you can enjoy the view with a few drinks while you watch the sunset and then catch the night view of the city. The best part is the 96th floor also has a bathroom with urinals up against the windows so you can feel like you are pissing out at the world - ah, such power. *smile*
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A quick taxi across the HuangPu river and we were strolling along The Bund at night with a view back at the towers of PuDong side. This would be a gorgeous walk at night if it weren't for the 1.3 billion Chinese yelling, spitting, shouting, eating, and shoving their way past you. I somehow managed a miracle and got a shot without anyone else in it. I think that is world record.
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We also met up with a young lady studying Chinese medicine in Shanghai. She is a Norwegian-Columbian mix (viking coffee?) and the mix seems to have turned out beautifully. I think Kevin would agree that while we were with her the entire population of Shanghai could not stop from staring at her. Amazingly, she was also very cool and friendly (or else why would she ever talk to us, right?).
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For Kevin's last night in Shanghai, we treated ourselves to Peking Duck. One of my favorite delicacies of Chinese cuisine, it consists of pieces of crispy duck skin bound to some oily fat and tidbits of duck meat. You take those pieces and places them into a thin crepe-like pancake with some light veggies and plum sauce, wrap it up and pop it in your mouth. It makes an excellent main dish for any Chinese meal. I believe our eyes were bigger than our stomachs that night as there was no way the two of us could finish all that food!
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Of course, food in China can wreak havoc on your system. You never know how it was made or what kind of fun bacteria may be in it. It tastes great going down, but sometimes on the way out you can break the toilet with a monstrous creation... I think Kevin proved this, as well.
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