We made it in to the train station at Suzhou and I was surprised that there was no subway line, so we jumped in a cab to the city center. (Later I learned from Vishal that they are in the process of building a subway in Suzhou which will eventually connect to the train station.) Vishal had some work to do in the morning, so we hung out nearby and visited a Holiday Inn’s Executive Lounge. It was great to finally meet up with Vishal — after you work so much with someone remotely, it’s not usually possible to actually meet them in person, so that was a cool opportunity! He showed us around the most ancient street in Suzhou, which was filled with shops. The entire city has extensive canals which were previously used for trade.

One of the coolest things on this street was a shop which had tanks for live oysters and buyers could select their own oyster, the owner cracks it open, then harvests the pearls in real time. The reason it’s cool is because most of the pearls in markets are knockoffs, so it’s very hard to tell if you’re getting an authentic specimen.

After the ancient streets, we headed to a restaurant that Vishal had suggested for huo guo (or hotpot), which is essentially a pot of boiling water and you order plates of meat, vegetables, etc to dip in and cook. It’s basically fondue with seasoned water. He was right — this place was AWESOME and helped us cross one more genre of food off our list!

With full stomachs, we jumped in a cab for a 40km ride to a village near Vishal’s office (a GE GDC) in a software park. All of the offices and construction was completely new — they are recently constructed the entire software and industrial parks.

Our destination was a street full of silk shoppes. This was one of the coolest and most authentic things I’ve seen…artists embroider scenes and pictures in silk. Many of the artwork is framed and is stunning. Before we knew it, our adventure was over and we said our goodbyes to Vishal, who was a great host for the day, and headed back to the train station for Shanghai. All in all, it was a great day trip!

Finally, we ventured out further to find the tailors and found that, to our dismay, they were also closed! Afterward, our next mission was to secure train tickets for our Saturday adventure to Suzhou, so we headed to the Shanghai railway station. The bullet train tickets were only 40 yuan each way and took about 30 minutes for 100km.

Pending the success, Ben and I celebrated by enjoying some dumplings at a small shop nearby, then headed to Nanjing Lu for some shopping. Later, when we returned to the hotel area, we met up with Chad at a Sichuan restaurant called the Little Sheep. Here, we enjoyed lots of amazing food, including one of my favorites – Sichaun green beans!

My favorite Sichuan green beans!

Sichaun Dinner

Sichaun Dinner

Fried dumplings at lunch

Lunch

The "Cool Docks" shopping center

Unfortunately the Shanghai Skyline is hazy because of the rainy weather!

Unfortunately, the directions that I had gotten us took us to the wrong Holiday Inn, so we had to jump back in a cab after getting off the subway. When we finally made it, we quickly left our bags, and devised a plan to head back out. Ben and I were intent on buying tailored suits here, but we wanted to make it to the market before it closed at 6:00. We couldn’t make it in time because of a closed subway line and a long detour, but we ended up on Nanjing Lu (the famous street of shopping for both high-end and knockoff goods).

We searched for a famous dumpling restaurant, but never found it, so we ended up ‘settling’ for another fried dumpling restaurant, which was actually outstanding (and incredibly cheap!). Afterwards, we ventured back out onto Nanjing Lu, to the pedestrian-only throughway. We spotted the same Bread Talk that I’d remembered from the last trip, and I wanted to check out Uni Qlo, a Japanese store that has a flagship in Shanghai, and one that I’d missed in NYC a few months ago. It was a pretty cool store, and we found some very cheap, but nice clothes.

Later, we ventured just off the pedestrian way and found a shop that we remembered from before where we could find discount wares and, well, shall I say, less than legitimate items. We actually went back to a lady who we’d met on the previous trip, and she was still in the same shop! After getting a few things, we headed back to Nanjing Lu and did some walking.

This street epitomizes the progress and economic development of this region – it makes you think you’re in the middle of Times Square with the LED signs and lights, and on Rodeo Drive with the ultra-high-end shoppes and accommodations.

Right now I’m looking at a panoramic of fireworks from our 19th floor room. To say this is anything like the Fourth of July fireworks displays would be a complete understatement. Fireworks in every direction and of every variety are being set off endlessly. There are always fireworks when I look out…I am going to attempt to post a video, but the file size may be too large. You need to see it, because I can’t adequately describe how insane (and — quite literally — awesome) it is!

After we left, we noticed that there was a Starbucks nearby, so I stopped to get a replacement of the Beijing cup that I”d purchased yesterday because as I was running for a bus, the Starbucks bag gave out and broke the handle. Nearby was the US Embassy, and we wanted to check it out and see if we could get a tour. When we arrived, we showed the Chinese guard our passports and he let us in, but we found that there was no one in the first security checkpoint because of the holiday (they take off the entire week for the Chinese New Year). We thought we were locked in, but we finally figured our way out, so we were back on the street.

Ben had secured us tickets to an acrobatics show that was relatively nearby, so we didn’t want to head back to the hotel. Instead, we jumped back on the subway to the Olympic Park. I’m glad we did, because it’s quite a magnificent park (and I hadn’t seen it when I visited in 2009). The stadium, conference center, and all of the other Olympic venues are extremely well-designed and well-laid-out. Nearby there was also a mall, which was seemingly built for the Olympics as well. Although it was one of the nicest malls I’ve ever seen (in terms of cleanliness and size), it was almost devoid of shoppes. It looked to be about 25% occupied. Needless to say, in the US, this type of mall would go out of business. There were, however, quite a few people visiting!

Ben met up with us at the mall as I enjoyed a McFlurry from McCafe (some things really are the same). We jumped back on the subway for a longer journey to the acrobatics show. The show was absolutely phenomenal. In the first act, there was an acrobat stacking chairs on top of one another, to 30-40 feet high, and then balancing on each of them (sometimes on a single arm, upside down). Another pair of acrobats did a ballet number where the male acrobat balanced the female on his shoulders and head as she performed. The control and precision of all the artists was amazing. Another act included numerous female acrobats riding bikes in harmony, then ended with all of them balancing on a single bike while still moving. Finally, the grade finale was a sphere wherein motorcycles ride. It would have been impressive with one…two, maybe…but there were six motorists zooming around inside a sphere with the diameter of no more than 20 feet. Needless to say, these were some jaw-dropping, daring performances. What a show, what a day!

We headed out for the Great Wall at Badaling, which is about 45 miles outside the city center. Google Maps had instructed us to go to the furthest subway stop, then catch a bus. This was to be a long journey, but the subway system is absolutely impressive here. Every single stop is pristinely maintained, including top-knotch escalators, clean tile flooring, RFID-equipped readers and gates (all electronic ticketing, which costs 2 yuan, or around 30 cents to go anywhere in the system), electronic displays for the next two train arrivals, and safety gates to keep people from falling (or being pushed when it’s crowded) into the line. Inside each of the cars, there’s an automated attendant in Mandarin and English announcing upcoming stops and connections, and the heads-up map shows which stop you’re leaving and arriving in real time. Needless to say, the technical splendor and outstanding condition of the subway places it among the best I’ve seen anywhere in the world. Yesterday it was eerily deserted for the holiday, but today it started looking more like China and was actually crowded. I’m interested to know how many people are moved around this system daily…it’s a big number, I’m sure. When we talk about infrastructural investments in major cities, they need to look at this system as a model.

Finally, we reached the end of the line and ended up catching a cab because it was rather cheap. After about 45 minutes of driving through a moutainous region, we reached the Badaling section of the Great Wall. The Badaling section is pretty commericalized and restored, but still requires some hiking. There were excellent views, though it was probably about -5 degrees! On the way back to the city, we decided to catch the bus, which ended up being extremely economical and fast (only cost about $2.50 for an hour or so ride back to the subway).

The walk from the subway to our hotel left us a bit hungry, so we ducked into a local restaurant, which seemed to serve authentic food, and started flipping through their photo-tabbed menu to order. We ended up ordering pork, beef, Sichuan tofu, and snake!  It was way too much food for three, but it was delicious. Surprisingly, the snake tasted a lot like seafood, but the texture was about like pork. It wasn’t my favorite exotic food, but it certainly isn’t something I’ll shy away from. The tofu was spicy, but probably my favorite of the dishes. When we were done, we wanted to see about their tipping customs here (some places in China will accept tips if they are more westernized, others don’t. As I exited the front door, one of the waiters ran after we with the 10 yuan that we’d left as a tip…I guess it’s not customary there!

Bread Talk, one of our favorite Chinese chains (it's actually Singaporean)

After leaving, we decided to head for the Silk Market (by subway this time), which is famous as one of the largest markets in China. Unfortunately, due to the Chinese New Year, the Silk Market was closed! Nearby, outside the subway station, there was a Starbucks. Inside we found the first westerners that we’d seen all day…in fact, it was almost filled with westerners. A tall Americano here actually costs about 50 cents more than in the US. Interestingly, instead of using xing ba ke Chinese naming for Starbucks, they have rebranded since the last time I was here and it just says “Starbucks” with the new logo.

From Starbucks we headed to Tian’an Men Square area to see the Forbidden City and Square. This is where all of the Chinese people who had seemingly cleared out had headed. Apparently it’s the place to be for the New Year. Interestingly, while we were there, we ran into one of the flight attendants from our flight over. What are the chances that in a city of 20 million we see him there.

The flight attendant gave us a recommendation for the local food stalls nearby, so we walked over and had an early dinner/late lunch. Ben and I had visited here on our last trip, but it seemed much more expansive this time (perhaps because we’d previously visited in the dark). There were all kinds of exotic foods…these are the kinds of food that people ask about when you say that you’ve been to China: “Oh, did you eat snake…did you eat __?” Here you can eat it all. We didn’t eat anything too exotic, but I had some excellent dumplings, chicken, fried bananas, noodles, and mango potato fries. For more than a block, all you can see are these food stalls, cooking up all kinds of exotic things, so the options are endless!

We headed back via Subway and had planned on going back out for dinner, but we were all exhausted and retreated to the hotel restaurant. Most American food in China isn’t that great, and this was no exception…my club sandwich was sub-par and overpriced, but Ben and I split a bottle of Great Wall wine, which is apparently made of Chinese grapes. It was a decent wine (which was also grossly overpaid for at about $18/bottle — not bad for a restaurant-grade wine, but still expensive for China). The Dragon Seal wine didn’t have much body and the tannins were prevalent. After that, I was out…time for bed. Fireworks continued late into the night!

As we approached the Beijing airport, we saw TONS of fireworks lighting up the sky 30,000 feet below. It looked like a bunch of firecrackers, with an occasional waterfall-type firework. As we took a long drive from the airport, we saw that literally everything was closed in celebration, and there was more fireworks that I’ve seen in my live in the middle of the streets. I’m not sure how many structure fires there were last night, but as close as they were setting them off to buildings, I’m sure there were at least a few!

When we arrived at our hotel, the Holiday Inn Temple of Heaven, we climbed to our 14th floor room and saw more fireworks that were around room-level. To say the display is impressive would be an understatement…what’s not an understatement is that the Fourth of July celebrations in the US completely pale in comparison to the Chinese New Year Celebrations!

This morning (Monday), we’re off for more adventures in Bejing…more later.

After breakfast, the other girls were heading to the airport to come home, so I hitched a ride with them to the airport because the hotel I booked for tonight had a free shuttle from there. (Unforuntunately the hostel had another group coming in so there was no room, or I’d have stayed there again.) When I got to the hotel La Princesa in Zona Viva, they upgraded me to the “executive” floor, which basically meant that I got to use their lounge (free computer and drinks!), but it was nice to have an actual computer.

As soon as I dropped my things, I headed out on foot to check out the Avenida La Reforma, which is a popular avenue lined with shops (most of them very pricey and Americanized). I found a little hole in the wall restaurant that was definitely not meant for foreigners had chicken, soup, tortillas, a licuado (real fruit smoothie), and some wafers for Q25, or about $3 – it was perfect!

Over the last couple days I’ve been into reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, so I read by the pool for a bit, and then took a nap. Oops – I overslept until 10PM (apparently I disabled my alarm?), so I was starving when I awoke. I set out again to a nearby restaurant (this Zona is safe to walk around with ample lighting and private security) where there was a man playing his guitar and singing lively music. Interestingly, I had a good conversation with the waiter whose son is a dual citizen in the US, and he often visits Miami.

I’ll be sad to go tomorrow afternoon, but I’ll have another chance to explore and visit a couple sites here. Nonetheless, it’ll be great to see family and friends for Christmas!

Summary Video by Kaitlin, one of our trip leaders…this is great!

We woke up before the crack of dawn again to head to the airport. I was heading to the “domestic” airport bound for Tikal and Jon & Lena were heading home via the International Airport. When I arrived, it was one of the smallest “airports” that I had ever been in. That’s not to say I’m complaining…there was no security check, no assigned seats (Southwest, anyone), and no long walk to the waiting area. I could see the turboprop from the checkin desk.

After driving to Panjachel, I came to really value flying and its avoidance of the treacherous and sometimes innavigable roadways. I caught a shuttle from the airport directly to the hotel in the park. When I looked at the Jungle Lodge hotel online, it looked nice, but it wasn’t much more than a white-walled room with a bed and rack for clothes. There is a shared bathroom, which was nice, as long as you don’t have to shower at night (the light didn’t work)…I showered by fashlight. Nonetheless, it was amazing to have warm shower!

I set out for the park and began walking to the first series of ruins. To find each set of ruins, I had to like through the jungle, which was quite refreshing. As I approached the main complex, I was taken aback by the magnitude of the structures. I have seen plenty of documentaries and such, but it’s something you really have to taken it. I was a bit appalled when I saw people standing atop the ruins. Then I saw a rickety wooden ladder which actually encouraged the activity. Of course we’d never allow anyone in the US to climb five or six stories without a guardrail (apparently not many people fall off these things?).

The site is absolutely gigantic. When I get back and can post some photos, you’ll agree. For this to have been constructed a thousand years ago and with limited tools, I can only imagine the years it took and the lives lost. In total, I hiked about 8-10 miles and saw all of the excavations. Toward he end of the day, I headed back to Temple IV, which also has a stairway to the top. From this view above the jungle, you can see the tops of the other high monuments. Needless to say, it’s a place to see the sunset.

Luckily, I had my flashlight as I had to hike out primarily in the dark to get to my room that was just outside the entrance. One of the coolest things is how un-commercialized everything is in this        park. It’s one of the premier sites of ruins in the world, and you can scarce buy a bottle of water. That’s not to say there aren’t entrepreneurs, though. The guards and their associates frequently offer after-hours admission to the park to view the sunrise, for a nominal fee. I’d have opted for it, but I didn’t want to pay the extra money and fancied the extra sleep.

Instead of eating at my lodge as I had for lunch, I hiked to a nearby lodge and had some spaghetti with chicken and a Moza (tastes vaguely like Mt. Carmel Amber Ale). The service at almost every restaurant I have visited has been horrendous, but I have learned that it’s not at all rude of flag down the waiter — just one of those cultural differences.

Today (Day 2 in the jungle), I decided not to re-enter the park and instead visited the museum outside the park because we head back to the airport at 2:30. The guard told me I wasn’t allowed to take photos of the artifacts herein because it might ruin them. I as slightly alarmed that many of the artifacts were sitting in the open air, or inside glass cases with no seal. I suppose they already survived a thousand years in the jungle…

It’s nice to be truly disconnected out there. There is some satellite wifi, but I elected not to pay — there are no cell phone services (except, I learned, on top of Temple IV above the trees), and no email interruptions!

I had breakfast this morning with two people I met on the way over here — they are from Miami, FL and the husband was studying Spanish in Antigua. He is returned, but his wife works at the University of Miami. They’re very friendly and we discussed how people are rarely disconnected, no matter where they are.

I may update in another post when I return to the Internet or at the end of the day. Will spend the last full day in Guatemala City (found a nice, cheap hostel there), then heading to the airport on Friday for an afternoon flight. Allison will be headed back from El Salvador at the same time, so we’ll meet up in ATL.

After breakfast, we headed out on our zipline adventure. The zipline was only about a half-mile away and we made it there by 9. After a very short training, we were headed up the mountainside near the lake with our guide. There were eight total lines, with the longest being about 1,000 ft! The vistas from up there were absolutely amazing – I could see the expansive lake, and the coffee plants below.

When the tour concluded, we hiked to a nearby and deserted beach. Although there was no sand, we took off our shoes and waded around in the cool lake, still enjoying the views. With such a secluded location, it was definitely worth the drive that we made to get to Panjachel. After the beach, we headed back to the hotel to check out and grab lunch. We ate at a local establishment playing 2000′s music and serving a combination of things from pizza to burritos. Jon and I enjoyed the later, and they were quite tasty. We’ve noticed that they don’t like their food very spicy here!  

The church that we visited is one of the oldest Catholic churches that I’ve seen. It was built in 1562 and restored sometime in the last 100 years. The outside looks absolutely antique, just like many of the churches and building in Antigua, but the inside boasts amazing hardwood-carved woodwork and there were candles burning in devotion to someone recently deceased. Outside, there is a giant Christmas tree of evergeen branches and spraypainted green (not sure why).

As I mentioned when we drove in yesterday, the drive was tedious, but we took a different route out today when we drove back to Guatemala City. Although we still had to navigate treacherous hillsides, we ended up on a divided highway and we were able to make good time in the Picanto. I was thoroughly impressed with this roadway, unlike the others in this country. Guatemalans have an obnoxious obsession with speedbumps.

In Guatemala City, we dropped the Picanto and searched for a hotel. We had met someone who was trying to get us to book a room through him when we left the city, so I called him and he hooked us up with a really sketchy room, so we bailed and hiked to the airport in search of an ATM. Finally, we ended up at the Crowne Plaza, and since we have to be up so early tomorrow, we made a picnic of fried chicken and merlot on our hotel room floor. Now off to the jacuzzi. Tomorrow morning Lena and Jon head home and I’ll catch a puddle jumper to Tikal for two days before heading out. Buenas noches!