China 12/2016: Shanghai

Night cruise to see the lit up sky scrapers. Apparently 20 years ago it was all farm land!

A rare Wig and Laura selfie...after spending almost two weeks in a selfie crazed country, we finally joined the masses!

Shanghai museum

So Shanghai has a Chinatown!  The city's history of being an international city, means there were areas belonging to various European countries, so they actaully walled off a section for the Chinese people. It was a crazy busy maze of streets and alleys with shop after shop of souvenirs and food. Lots of people try to get you into an out of the way corner or alley or through a hidden door in their shop, so that they can sell cheap, fake rolexes and Gucci bags!

Two guys from our tour group got "rolexes" for about 10-15 bucks!

It sure was an experience. There were lots if stinky tofu vendors, and man that stuff smells awful!

Chinatown architecture, with the tallest building in Shanghai in the background

Scooters everywhere!

Wig giving a Chinese pig a good bye pat on our last morning.  Cheers!

China 12/2016: Yellow Mountain

The day at the yellow mountain was another highlight of the trip.  After taking a shuttle to the cable car, and then riding the cable car up the mountain, we still managed to hike several miles, which included thousands of stairs...just to get to the restaurant for lunch. It was nice to get some exercise and it was a beautiful day on a beautiful mountain! (Once again, this is a place well known for fog, and we were lucky!)

Cable car ride

Beautiful scenery

One of the rock outcroppings looked like a person to me...

China 12/2016: After the cruise and up to Haungshan

Cross country bus and high speed rail travel ensued.  

We stopped in a city that I can't remember the name of, to walk on the ancient city wall

Enjoyed looking down on several groups of people dancing or dong tai chi. 

Two thousand year old mummy of a governor of the same city. 

Always need doggy time when we are away from wallie!

More crazy food!

West Lake in Hongzhou. We were lucky to see a sunset, the city is known for fog!

We visited a tea plantation near Hongzhou. Pretty, but the pressure to buy the "only good authentic" green tea was strong!  The tea was actually really good!

Huangshan city had a beautiful lit up bridge and a really neat "old street". Got a photo of the bridge, but just enjoyed taking in the atmosphere along the old street and forgot to take pics!

China 12/2016: Yangtze River cruise

It was a foggy mellow four days.  We made side trips along the way...

The Red Pagoda.  They built a wall around the grounds to keep this from being flooded after the dam was built.  

The activity here was to make sure you climbed the 99 stairs "for luck"!

More pretty green tiles!  

There were twelve busts here of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. Wig here with his monkey!

Me with my ox. 

Then we got on a smaller boat to go up a side canyon.  A guide told a long story about the area, but we were sitting outside enjoying the view, and didn't hear the story...so I have no idea what the significance of the canyon is!

In another side canyon, there was a mock up of an old ethnic village. It was a nice walk and pretty. 

And I had the best time sneaking away from our guide so that I could see the wild monkeys. (When our group went by, they weren't there, but when they came down from the cliffs to greet a different group, I went back!)

Wig joined me!

We bought peanuts from the guy selling them under the "don't feed the monkeys" sign!

Managed to get a photo of these old style boats without barges and cruise ships in the river near them!

We did go through the locks at the Three Gorges dam, but it was in the middle of the night.  Wig got up and watched, but I tried to sleep through the squeeling of metal stuff rubbing each other and a dog barking on the barge next to us!  No pics

China 12/2016: Panda zoo

Lesser Panda. So cute!

We were there at feeding time, it was fun!