My Mental Vacation

Li Yang and Tian Muhu Lake

After a flight out of Beijing in the early morning, we spent yesterday in the City of Li Yang, which is about one hour away from Nanjing. What a beautiful resort city it turned out to be. We met with the city administrator, their director of international relations, and a marketing director. My friend Meiling was with us, too.

Li Yang is a progressive city, with thoughtful planning. Tian Mu (or Tian Muhu) Lake is quite beautiful. It is a reservoir with a number of dams, and it is the focus of the resort area. Because it is the source of drinking water for Li Yang, they are very careful to keep the water clean and healthy. We saw blue skies there, and less smog.

The lake has a number of small islands within it, and we took a boat tour to see the lake and take a hike on one of the islands. The vegetation was lush, and a wooden boardwalk traced a path around the perimeter, and up and down some of the hilly areas. We even saw a waterfall - manmade, but designed to bring oxygen and keep the water flowing through the ponds and streams. Recycle bins were everywhere.

It was really nice to see such concern for the environment in country where we saw none of this only three years ago. Lots of other changes, too, which I'll talk about another time.

It is an unspoiled and beautiful park in a modern, small city of over one million people. Definitely worth a visit! Quiet and serene, with a five star resort (even by MY picky standards) and an inspired chef.

Day Two in China

It has been a while, but here I am posting on my blog again. Just some quick random comments about our day in Beijing. Our schedule is packed, and there is little time for thoughtful writing.

• Culture shock does not begin to describe it! How funny to find that I cannot even access Facebook here.
• Today, we visited the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, and the Forbidden City. I think we walked for eight hours straight. Very interesting... we are going to watch "The Last Emperor" again when we get home, now that we have seen everything firsthand.
• The Temple of Heaven is a truly beautiful park. I love the way the Chinese people hang out in the park. We saw ballroom dance lessons, elders singing revolutionary songs, card games, and a strange kind of karaoke that involves old ladies singing opera.
• Putin is in town. We had to pass through security to get into our hotel today. Hmm...
• Traffic is awful and the sky is almost brown. Our guide says that people are becoming more conscious of global warming and protecting the environment. They are building another nuclear power plant, he said.
• Yes, Peking Duck is excellent. We enjoyed the food here very much.
• Oscar Zhang is our guide.... If you ever come to Beijing, he is an excellent guide. He has taken care of everything, and his knowledge of history is quite good. Even better, he knows all the tricks and shortcuts, so we never, ever wait in line.
• Yesterday was the last day in which the floats from China's 60th National Day parade were on display in Tian An Men Square. They were pretty amazing. They put so much into this celebration. I'm glad we had the chance to see them, along with millions of other tourists, mostly Chinese.