Vacation Pictures

[Leila]

This was taken in a garden near the West Lake in Hangzhou. Hangzhou was my favorite destination in China. It has such a romantic feel to the place and it really has so much to offer. We rode on a boat on the West Lake and took in the sights, strolled through the many beautiful lush gardens. And on the other side of Hangzhou, there''s the complete different world, tons of cars, skyscrapers, shopping malls, really full of loud bustling city life! The food is really good here, much better than in Beijing. But we must say the best food we had was in Hong Kong.

 

[Leila]

This was taken on our boat ride along the West Lake in Hangzhou.

 

[Leila]

Tea plantation in Meijiawu Tea Village in Hangzhou. We bought some dragonwell green tea here to take home and give as gifts. I love green tea and it''s the best green tea I''ve ever had.

 

[Leila]

Linyin Temple in Hangzhou is one of the largest temples in China. It is dated back to 326 AD, and has been rebuilt 16 times. This picture is of the hillside, south of the temple, famous for its old Buddhist caves and rock carvings, many of which date back to the time when the temple was first constucted.

 

[Leila]

Another shot. Oh sorry! I forgot to rotate the picture and I don't know how to fix it!

 

[Leila]

In this building is a huge statue of Buddha. There were several buildings like this, with different Chinese Gods and people would buy incense and pray to them. I didn''t take any pictures inside the temple because I thought it was disrespectal, but the statues were huge and impressive. We thought it was kind of fire hazard, quite dangerous actually, to walk though the crowd, literally hundred of swarming people, many with lit incense!

 

[Leila]

I was impressed with the beautiful architecture. Here are some closeups of the artwork on some of these buildings.

 

[Leila]

That''s all for now. If you all are still interested

, I''ll post more of the rest of my vacation pictures.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Wow -- these are marvelous! If you got more I''ll gladly look at ''em!

 

[CareBear]

Leila, keep the pics coming! I love looking at people''s vacation pics!

 

[Leila]

Sorry it''s been a while, I''ll try to post the rest of my pictures. Here''s a shot of how the famer''s houses look in the outskirts of Suzhou. I was surprised at how they look. My tour guide told me that the families uses the top most room of the house to worship their ancestors/guardians.

 

[Leila]

This is one of my favorite pictures taken on this trip. We were taking a boat ride through the canals in Suzhou and I happened to snap a picture of this man exercising in front of his home. Suzhou is called the Venice of the East, but really, it''s as romantic as you would think. The people who live along the canals are very poor, many do not have modern plumbing and would dump their excrement into the water. The living conditions are far from what we would deem acceptable.

 

[Leila]

Garden for Lingering In in Suzhou.

 

[Leila]

View of The Bund, in Shanghai. The tall strange looking building that looks like an antenna ball is the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, the world''s 3rd largest tv and radio tower.

 

[Leila]

View of Shanghai from the Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

 

[Leila]

View of the city from Victoria Peak, Hong Kong.

 

[Leila]

The view at night.

 

[Leila]

DH tried to get a picture of me with the beautiful city lights but darn, our camera sucks! Can you see me? I''m not brave enough to post a clear pic of myself like some of you.

 

[Leila]

Tian Tan Buddha, made of bronze is 111 feet tall and weighs 250 tons. It can be seen as far as Macau. It is located at Ngong Ping in Lantau Island, the largest of the islands of Hong Kong.

 

[Leila]

And from afar.....

 

[Leila]

This fisherman is selling fresh mantis shrimp, fish, abalone, clams, oysters, crabs, among many other delicious seafood. In this shot, he is getting the items we purchased, which we later took to a restaurant down the street to have them prepare the food for us. You could also get the seafood directly from the restaurant itself, but we thought it was fun to purchase from the fisherman and give him our business. This area is called Seafood Street in Sai Kung, Hong Kong, a place famous for their seafood. It is literally a street full of seafood restaurants, and each establishment has a group of employees that would come out to greet you and very aggressively try to persuade you to come into their restaurant. It gets quite crazy!!! But here was one of the best food I've eaten, a dinner full of exotic, fresh seafood for 4, cost us less 80$ US. I was definitely in seafood heaven!

 

[codex57]

Glad you had a fun time.

Traffic is very scary, but it''s actually like that in a lot of Asia. In Taiwan, they''ll drive on the sidewalks. Never saw that in China.

But yeah, a lot of the "rudeness" is really just cultural differences (and conditioning from the Communist way of life - deprived of some basic necessities forcing people to be really aggressive). Since you''re from Hawaii and its famously laid back lifestyle, I imagine it''s quite a shock. Out here on the Mainland (SF''s Chinatown for example), you realize it happens in the US as well.

 

[Leila]

The mantis shrimp we had. They reminded me of lobsters.

 

[Leila]

Cuttlefish

 

[Leila]

An enormous selection for sure!

 

[Leila]

And finally, we visited Macau. This is the Ruins of St. Paul''s Church. The construction of the church was completed in 1637. It caught fire three times and was rebuilt, but was finally destroyed in another fire in 1853 and was never rebuilt. Macua is known as the Las Vegas of the East but it is very much still in its begining stages with many casinos still in the process of being built. We didn''t get to explore Macau very much, and in part it was due to a lousy tour guide we had. I wished we had done better research and toured the city on our own.

 

[Sundial]

I''m really enjoying your pictures Leila! We visited some of the same places, but obviously there is more to see in this fascinating country!!!

 

[cutes814]

Leila, the pics are lovely! I enjoyed reading about your trip very much.

My family has a huge house in China in the village where we used to live like the ones in your shot of the outskirts of Suzhou. We too kept the highest floor (in our case the 3rd floor) to worship our ancestors and guardians.

On a side note, I can''t believe you didn''t try the food from the street vendors! Come''on!! They''re the best!! Yum.