China Background

Let's start with a brief overview of China. The third largest country after Russia and Canada, China is the most populated at 1.3 billion, roughly 1 fifth of the world's population lives in China. Formally referred to as the People's Republic of China, she has a history that is as long as the Great Wall. Civilization first formed in China in 8,000 BC, that's 10,000 years ago! Her Capital is Beijing and the largest city is Shanghai. China is made up of 91% Han Chinese with 55 other ethnic minorities making up the remaining 9%. The Han are found in the east closest to the fertile Pacific basin area with the minorities populating the mountains, deserts, and plains of the western lands. The currency is the Renminbi (yuan) which is worth about 16 cents US, making roughly 8 Yuan to the dollar. In China, except Hong Kong, people drive on the right.

Itinerary Map

Itinerary

Date	Day #	City Visit	Activity
19-May	1	Travel to Beijing	Travel day
20-May	2	Beijing	Rest/free day
21-May	3	Beijing	Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Beijing Opera
22-May	4	Beijing	Great Wall, Ming Tombs
23-May	5	Beijing	Summer Palace, the Imperial Garden in the Qing Dynasty, the old Beijing Hutong.
24-May	6	Beijing-Xian (Flight)	Shaanxi museum, city wall, a Tang Dynasty Dancing Show
25-May	7	Xian	Terra Cotta Soldiers
26-May	8	Xian-Shanghai (Flight) & to Suzhou (Bus)	Liu Garden, Silk Workshop, the old town of Suzhou.
27-May	9	Suzhou-Shanghai (Bus)	Sightseeing cruise of Huangpu River, cityscape between east and west (the Bund) bank of Huangpu River
28-May	10	Shanghai	Shang hai Museum, old town –Cheng huang miao , free time to shop at Nanjing Road, view for Expo 2010, Acrobatics Show
29-May	11	Shagnhai-Wuhan (Flight) and to Yichang (Bus)	Travel day
30-May	12	Yangtze River Cruise	the Xiling Gorge. Excursion: Three Gorges Dam, Passing Three Gorges Dam
31-May	13	Yangtze River Cruise	Excursion: Lesser Three Gorges. The Wu Gorges and Qutang Gorges.
1-Jun	14	Yangtze River Cruise	Excursion: Fengdu city.
2-Jun	15	Chongqing-Guilin (Flight) and to Yangshuo (Bus)	Panda Zoo, City Tour, Yangshuo, show“Impression Liu San Jie”
3-Jun	16	Yangshou	Visit Yangshuo, Cruise Li river
4-Jun	17	Yangshou-Guilin (Bus)	Visit Guilin for Elephant Trunk Hill, free time downtown
5-Jun	18	Guilin-Guangzhou (Flight) and to Zhongshan (Bus)	Ancestral Temple of Chen family
6-Jun	19	Zhongshan-Zhuhai-Macau (Bus/Ferry)	City tour Zhuhai, City tour Macau
7-Jun	20	Macau-Hong Kong (Ferry)	Free Time
8-Jun	21	Hong Kong	Free Time
9-Jun	22	Hong Kong - travel home	Travel day

Getting Ready

Seeing the world is still a dream for our retirement but when Lucie's brother Jean announced his plans to tour China this year with his wife we thought, why wait? Lucie and I have witnessed far too much loss around us in the last year, helping us rethink the strategy of saving everything for the golden years. Our retirement plans, still an event a few years out as we support our son Christopher's trip through college (no pun intended), still include as much travel as we can afford but at the same time, we plan to enjoy life's journey along the way.


Jean and Danielle's trip is with an organized tour from a Canadian company called Sinorama (www.vacancesinorama.com) who's subsidies from the Chinese Government make the deal almost too good to pass up. Their original plans called for 2 weeks touring the mainland but left out Hong Kong. Sinorama offers a three week version that includes Hong Kong and Macao and Lucie and I thought if we're going to sit on an airplane for 157 hours we should see everything - not likely getting back to this part of the world again! Lucie convinced Jean about this logic and now we're all booked for three weeks in May-June.



So here we go, The People's Republic of China in all its glory...