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After a few days in Shanghai, including a trip to Jurrasic Pub, we left Shanghai by train for Suzhou, a city famous for canals , gardens, and once being the capital of all of china.
After visiting the Blue Wave garden, and walking by the canals, we visited the Master of the Nets garden, with its many pavillions, and each pavillion having a five minute performance. The walk through town took us to Northern Pagoda which had 9 stories and an excellent view of the surrounding park and Suzhou. A visit to the Humble Administrators Garden which was founded in 200 AD, made a pleasant afternoon of relaxing.
Our next destination was Kaifeng, a small city seemingling ignoring China's rapid Industrialisation/Modernisation. This was once a capital of china, but there was not much to see, a temple or two and a large park on a lake. This lake had a Dragon Boat and some Sculptured bushes but over all a place to avoid
The next place of interest was Longmen Grottoes which are a series of caves with many Buddhas inside THere were over 2000 caves, and over a 100,000 buddha's.
Luoyang also had many factories which still had old lady living in it. She lived alone in the cave, as her family have moved to the village above, but she gets many visitors because it is cold. She had her feet bound when young, so the feet were only half the size of normal.
We left Luoyang, for Xian by overnight train..
Xian, yet another ancient capital, was a long way west. Xian's main attraction is the
Terracotta Warriors from over 2000 years ago guarding the emporers tomb, which were only recently discovered by a farmer 20 or so years ago. but the city itself was interesting. The city is a walled city, and one of the few cities in china which still had its ancient wall. Inside the inner city at the center (the intersection of the roads from north-south, and east-west gates) was the
Bell tower
which had a large bell (not so surprisingly) and also
music performances using traditional instruments (surprisingly playing Auld Lang Syne).
The view west from the top of the bell tower showed the
Drum tower and large public square. The drum tower is close to the entrance of the muslim quarter (nice food!) and contains the
Great Mosque which looks like a typical chinese building except for the ornament at the very top.
It was possible to climb the
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