We arrived last evening at our hotel in Hangzhou and only had today to explore….3 very different attractions:  Hangzhou Silk Town; Lingyin Buddhist Temple (see link below); West Lake.

The 3 very different experiences were each impressive in their own way….but definitely, the Lingyin Temple, which is an ongoing/active Buddhist Temple that dates from 328 AD took the prize for the day in our assessment.

We were only able to just touch the surface of all this city has to offer given our limited time…..but it was our intention to broadly sample this vast country when we were putting together this first trip to China….and so it has been. People have been friendly and helpful; everywhere that we have been has been VERY clean…with wondrous sculptured landscaping on highway medians and city streets; a lot of the restaurant menus have STRANGE items for our pallets….but we have not gone hungry…and more importantly (knock on wood), we haven't had any issue with sickness. To sum up: we are very impressed by this country in so many ways and look forward to getting back for more time here later in the year.

We are now in our final week before heading back to Sea Mist and we have had a great time ….the mix of opportunities we have had has deeply wetted our appetite for more time in this country. Here are a few of the attractions we did (shall) take in:

Beijing:                 Forbidden City>Tiananmen Square>Beijing Hutongs>Temple of Heaven>Pearl Market>The Great Wall-Mutianyu>Summer Palace>National Museum

Xi'an:                    Terracota Warriors>Bell Tower/Drum Tower>Tang Dynasty Music and Dance Show

Chengdu:            Chengdu Research Base Of Giant Panda Breeding>"Riverside" strolls - day and night (Bar Street-life at night!!)

Guilin:                   Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo

Hangzhou:          Lingyin-Feilai Feng Scenic Area; West Lake- Unesco World Heritage SIte

Suzhou:                (will have to wait and see when we get there tomorrow….but we hear of a wonderfully gardened city??)

Shanghai:            ??....our final stop for 3 nights/4 days ending on June 23rd