Summary of our trip

I wrote an email to my brother Jon about our trip and realized that it did a great job of summarizing our trip.


It was a great trip. Wenguo really did a great job getting us into nice hotels cheap. Her brother got us 50% off on airfare on our family flights in China. It was hot and humid everywhere we went, but not so bad that we couldn’t stand it, just a little bit uncomfortable at times. I did a lot of work during the entire trip via email and I posted to our blog; http://danwenguo.blogspot.com including a short video!

Shuya and I spent almost a whole day in the Beijing Zoo. We got some great pictures and jpg video of the pandas. One panda came right up to the window next to Shuya! It was great - and real affordable. We went to The Great Wall (where I hiked for a couple of hours up and down the hills on top of the wall) and Tiananmen Square (were Wenguo bought a really cool kite cheap – we’ll bring it to Cape Cod). I met with a customer and a Rep firm there one day while Wenguo met with family and friends there. The air pollution in Beijing was unbelievable that day. I was told it was probably dust from a dust storm on the desert to the west. It cleared up a lot the next 2 days but it was still pretty bad.

Then we went to visit Wenguo's brother and his family in Changchun in Manchuria, just north of Korea. It was really nice, mostly green farmland, gently rolling, fairly flat countryside with Rice and wheat fields. The air was pretty clear, just hazy from some humidity. Wenguo’s family got us into a great little 4-star hotel at a low rate, but her sister-in-law took care of the bill! We didn’t pay anything. The best part was a children's park that I went to with Wenguo's brother and his son Halei. Shuya rode the rides which were only a few RMB each, and we saw animals like monkeys, giraffe, elephants, and such. She was exhausted when we left and fell asleep in her stroller as we were walking out. It was great!

Then we went to Wenguo's parents house in Shaoxing for a couple of days. Wenguo borrowed her mother's cell phone and I was able to call her to keep in touch when we weren't together. It was cool. Wenguo, mama and I took Shuya to the Children’s park in Shaoxing one morning and Shuya had a blast riding all the rides. There were only a handful of people there so we never had to wait for any rides. Shuya loved it! I took her on the bumper car ride and I loved that one! Wenguo did a lot of shopping in and around Shaoxing, mostly for silk products (ties and scarves) and baby clothes. We got a lot of gifts from her family and friends while we were there. They are very generous.
I took a trip to Shenzhen by myself to meet with customers, reps, and potential partners. I stayed in a very nice 4-star hotel, the Jinhu Jasper hotel, recommended by our reps. The reps picked me up at the airport and I had transportation arranged everywhere by the people I was visiting. I learned a lot - it was valuable time. Wenguo did most of her shopping in Shaoxing while I was in Shenzhen.

I returned to Shaoxing and we moved to the 5-star Shaoxing International Hotel. It was very nice and Wenguo got the room really cheap. 300RMB with breakfast included! And it was a great breakfast buffet. We found a leather goods store going out of business and I bought a pair of dress shoes for $10. Wenguo bought a couple of pairs of shoes for $10 each, and I got a small leather computer bag for just about $20. We brought mama and baba there and got them each a pair of new shoes. (Nu shu means son-in-law in Chinese!)

We got on a bus to Hangzhou one morning and after a 45 minute ride grabbed a taxi and had them drop us off at the Shangri-la hotel next to West Lake. It was a beautiful hotel. We talked about staying there for 1 or 2 nights someday. Wenguo used to spend a lot of time in that hotel as a tour guide when she lived in Hangzhou. We took a boat ride on West Lake. I was bummed that the lotus flowers weren’t in bloom. I haven’t seen them bloom yet. The boat ride is cool. The boat takes you out to an island and you can get off and walk around, and then you can take another boat to another island or to some other destination on the shore - you can do this all day for the price of admission. We saw lots of beautiful things on the lake and on the islands. There are a few pagodas near the lake and you can see them from various vantage points. We met one of her friends for lunch - she took us to an extravagant restaurant and we ate well (as usual in China). Then another friend of hers came and we went to Starbucks on the south side of the lake and they talked while Shuya slept and I walked along the boardwalk on the lake feeling the breeze and taking pictures. It was a great day. Hangzhou was really clean and looked like a modern city. It’s quite a bit bigger (7-9M) than Shaoxing (1M) and very expensive to live in. It’s one of the premier tourist cities in China. We took a bus back at 6PM and went to a little restaurant next to our hotel for dinner. We had a good meal there. Delicious duck! It was Wenguo’s birthday and it was a great day.

I got my hair cut in Shaoxing. It included a head massage, and if I had wanted it, I could have had my ears cleaned too. The guy that cut my hair did a great job. He cut the sides and back shorter than I’m used to but it’ll be great for summer. I like it so much I think I’ll get it cut the same way next time. Wenguo was able to spend a lot of time with her family and so did Shuya. I’m very grateful for that.

The trip was great and Shuya did very well on both flights to and from China, and all through the trip she was well behaved. She had some fits of stubbornness and temper tantrums but most of the time she was great. We suffered very little from jet lag on the way over but on the way back Wenguo had a lot of trouble adjusting. Shuya and I did better but it was difficult sleeping the first 2 nights. One day Shuya was acting up a lot – having temper tantrums, but she seems back to her usual self now.

We got back last Wednesday at Midnight. There was a heavy downpour on the ride home. I had to drive really slowly because there was so much water on the road that the car started hydroplaning. That’s very rare in Colorado! It stopped by the time we got home, which is typical in Colorado. We didn’t get to bed until 1:30 AM and Shuya and I had trouble going to sleep. When I got into our bed I realized how hard the beds were in China! Wenguo was exhausted so she went to sleep pretty quickly.

When we got up, everything was green and the grass was a foot high! My wisteria finally bloomed for the first time in about 5 years and they smell great! The snowball verbena was in full bloom with huge white flower balls! Plus I think they grew another foot taller. It was so cool!