BEYOND THE WALL

TONGLING, NINBO, SHANGHAI AND HONG KONG

onespirit555 — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 01:22:00 GMT

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Welcome from Hong Kong!

It feels like I just came through a black hole and revisited the real world of Google, Facebook and the English language! Never the less, I was able to spend the Chinese New Year in Xingyue Village, Shunan in Anhui Province. The village consisted of about 16 residents, all of the same family name/clan. I was was excited about the food and decorations preparations for the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) . Dumplings and "meefin bah bah" and fish, pork, poultry with many vegetables. It was 28 degrees F and snowing when I awoke one morning! There was no heat except a water bottle for your feet under the covers in your bed and also boxes to sit in with embers from the Wok fire placed under a grate to keep you warm. Chamber pots provided at night, interesting out house for during the day. Lots of family members from other areas came home to celebrate. I was quite the spectacle being a foreigner so there were lots of camera shots as I posed with family members. Fire works went off all day and also at night. I played Mahjong and had an incredible experience.

On February 2nd I travelled to Shanghai and spent four days before heading to Hong Kong on the 6th. I have some great photos to add to this blog as soon as I figure out how to do it. Tablets are different then laptops and PC's.

SHANGHAI TO NINGBO

onespirit555 — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:55:00 GMT

It has taken this long to provide an update on my trip to China because I have not had good internet access. I arrived in Shanghai on New Years Eve. My couch surfing hosts, consisting of a mother, father, 12 year old son, an auntie and my friend Tiger, picked me up at the airport and we went to their home in Ningbo about three hours away. I settled in, met the family and went to bed. In the following days, I visited a 1700 old library with 80,000 books, Walmart, street vendors, a grocery store and ate and ate and ate. I have had turtle, shrimp, eel, pig intestines, various fish, shell fish, fish testicles, bamboo, green vegetables, squash and many more, all cooked in a wok. No ovens here! They eat for 1-2 hours at a time, and it is all double dipping. In the evenings I would listen to beautiful piano music on a Yamaha Grand Piano by a 12 year old boy and his dad. I then went to a nearby city of Cixi and stayed in a very ritzy hotel. In the next few days I met lots of people and spent a couple of nights with a family of two docters and their daughter. We went to Wei Li Temple and saw beautiful ancient architecture with many buddahs and monks. I also went to the remains of a very old porcelain china factory. It was flooded with water, along with the village when a damn was built to provide drinking water. I met a buddhist family and they were preparing to perform a ceremony to return fisn and rabbits, bought at the street market, to their natural habitats as an act of kindness often done in their culture. They invited me to accompany them. The father hailed a boat from the opposite shore. Soon we were on the boat throwing rice into the resevoir. We carefully picked up each fish and placed them into the water while the mom waved customary flags and the dad chanted and sang. On the opposite shore the rabbits were released into the wild and a similar ceremony held. I am now preparing to go to Tongling, my host's home village for the spring festival. It is the Chinese New Year celebration that takes place over a couple of weeks. This year it is the year of the Dragon. We will prepare food and decorations. I also have had foot massages, hair wash and massage and a beutiful red winter coat was hand made for me because I am the biggest human in China! I will be back in a couple of weeks and hopefully get a connection to write again. By the way, fireworks go off every day at any time of day. They are part of many ceremonies here in preparation for the new year.

COUNT DOWN TO SHANGHAI!

onespirit555 — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:55:00 GMT

I am so excited about traveling to China! I have a wonderful opportunity to visit friends and their families in China and experience spring festival. I am looking forward to being totally immersed in the culture. I will leave Alaska on December 30th, 2011 and return home on March 25th, 2012. In addition to my visit with my friends in Ningbo and Tongling, I plan on visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Shangrila, Lhasa, Xian, and many other places. My highlights will be the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Panda Reserve. I will be going fishing, riding a bamboo raft down the river, picking tea leaves in the mountains, washing in the Yangtze RIver, and doing some geocaching along the way.