preparing for china

we have Chinese food - LOL - OK we actually did more than that, but first the Chinese food- because it was excellent!

this was only one page of the menu- LOL- you can see it would take a while to come to a decision about what to eat-

although the won ton soup did not photograph well - it was really tasty - the broth was full of flavor which is why it is so reflective of the flash on my phone camera- sorry-

the house special hot and sour soup was excellent!- not too vinegar-y and had this great little crunch thing going on with the sesame seeds

the orange beef was first rate-had some heat but not overwhelming heat-

 

we picked these dishes as our sample because these a sort of barometers for decent Chinese food- they were all excellent-

 

what wasn't spectacular were the spring rolls which were barely room temperature- a definite miss on that course- maybe next time we will try the Crab Rangoon (another way to test the mettle of a particular kitchen)

 

so anyway- we were in the mood for Chinese food because on Saturday our final packet for the China trip came in the mail... and it contained a ton of stuff but here are some little tidbits as enticements for you to follow along on the journey with us via the blog....

 

they sent us two guide books- lots of postcards with stamps to mail them back from China- and brochures from all the hotels but one-

 

I may have mentioned that we have planned a trip inside a trip- we planned a trip to and from Hong Kong (where we have been four times before I think) and we wanted to go to southern and western China and to Shanghai so I asked my "go-to travel planner" Heidi Perez at Nature Expeditions to put something together for us- and then after she and I had finished our plans for that part of the trip, Phil suggested a day trip from HKG to Guangzhou, the economic powerhouse of the south...

 

so here is how it will go- we fly to HKG and stay there for four nights and do our own thing with a one day trip into mainland China to see Guangzhou (famous for Cantonese food!) and then we fly from HKG to Lijiang - our first stop...

 

here are photos from the hotel brochure - it looks like an amazing place-

 

doubt this will be our room- LOL but it certainly is magnificent !

this is what I would expect our room to be similar to-

some of the town and area photos from the brochure-

below- tiger Leaping Gorge- where we will be on Phil's birthday!

 

from there we go on to Zhongdian - now promoted as Shangri-La.  It is a town on the Tibetan plateau at 9400 foot elevation- supposedly photos of the place inspired the author Hilton...

 

 

 

in a mystery- the photo of the "Our Service" page had been pasted over this photo below- I guess the fellow in the photo may be the new lama?

 

here are the postcards they sent from the HKG and Yunnan part of the trip and some of the stamps -

 

 

I never knew Beethoven was Chinese! LOL

 

from there we go to Guilin - where we meet up with our brother Larry- post cards then the hotel brochure photos-

 

 

 

the following hotel - the Green Lotus had no brochure in the things they sent us (so use your imagination until I come back with photos- LOL)

 

then we are off to Shanghai and a splurge hotel at the Waldorf!

 

 

some postcards from Shanghai-

 

 

then on to Hangzhou with its beautiful West Lake-

 

 

the postcard below was labeled Hubang Park but I couldn't find that on the Internet so I looked for Hangzhou photos that might show the location and the one I found looks like it is the right place so those must be the Hangzhou postcards!

 

 

the Internet photo was a much better shot anyway. 

 

so from there we return to HKG and we head home a day later while Larry stays on and goes to Macao...

 

 

 so I will do a mark up on the map and re-post it with the places we are headed shown more clearly--stay tuned! 

 

The three orange box/dots are (from left to right) Zhongdian, Lijiang and Guilin-