China Sabbatical
The trip from Little Rock to Wuxi: Jan 19-21 2009
The flight to China was to be with Northwest { Little Rock : Memphis: Detroit: Tokyo: Shanghai}
However a late departure from Detroit required an overnight stay in Tokyo [1,2] with the rest of the trip to Shanghai PVG provided by Japanese Airlines.
Passing through customs at PVG
Going through customs and passport control in China was quite easy and I was amazed that at the customs office, after the entry visa is stamped, a push button satisfaction survey is possible and you have the opportunity to evaluate your experience in passing through the Chinese customs. I do not recall having seen such opportunities in the United States.
In order to make the trip from Shanghai PVG to Wuxi, we took a long distance bus (which is found on the second level of PVG by exiting terminal 15). The cost for this bus is 100 Yuan (about $13 based upon the exchange rate of 7.7 that I saw in PVG) and I have to say that the bus driver was most skilled. The bus makes one stop at the regional shanghai airport before arriving at Wuxi about 3 hours later. It seems to take the shanghai bypass and at least two tolls need to be paid along the way. We passed several accidents along the way... one truck apparently dumped lots of bricks in the other direction of the freeway, and we also passed a bus accident which looked a bit more serious. China has traffic police which act pretty much like the same traffic police in America, and we saw several people pulled over at times. Eventually we arrived at the city center of Wuxi. One of the things I noticed that is really new here is that the signs are starting to have two languages, Chinese and English. More and more I am also seeing English in common usage although for sure Wuxi is still quite an international city and has been for some time.
When you exit the bus, close to the location where the busses enter the "bus yard" which is the parking lot for the busses, there is the possibility to obtain a taxi to a local destination. We did this and the trip to our hotel was about 35 Yuan ($5, for a trip which took about 20 minutes). It is probably important to make sure you use official taxis because the prices are properly metered. It is possible by accepting non-official taxis to end up paying twice as much.
The trip to the hotel which is at the "water works" at lake Taihu in Wuxi went through a new tunnel in Wuxi. Just two years ago, no tunnel existed and now an ultramodern tunnel connects downtown Wuxi to the lake area directly. It is still amazing to see the rate of skyscraper construction in Wuxi: I suppose I saw at least 50 modern skyscrapers under construction passing through Wuxi. Older houses are being cleared for these projects. Everywhere, incidentally, along the freeways and also the major highways here in China you will see enormous efforts made for planting trees and bushes in the medium strip. The effort is much more than in America and the medium must be quite pretty when the flowers are blooming.
The first night in Wuxi
The hotel staff here are quite friendly although the hotel is not nearly full. This is apparently because the Chinese New Year is approaching. This is also the reason we took the bus instead of the train to Wuxi: many people are moving in China right now for the New Year (yesterday 1 million people were transported by train in China). We arrived at our hotel around 6 PM and it was just getting dark. After we got our room, we were able to eat. We had a private room to eat in and the meal consisted of a huge bowl of noodles with soup, green beans and soy beans. Ultimately it was too much to eat. Amazingly the noodles seem to not have produced a huge spike in my BGL since it was quite normal 4 hours later. This is good to know since I have not previously been concerned about diabetes in china when I was here. This remarkable meal costs about 20 Yuan even with the private room. Our hotel room is also quite reasonable at about $25 per day but such a rate was negotiated by our relatives here before we arrived.
Taihu and Lihu Lake Pictures
Some Pictures from downtown Wuxi
A church in downtown Wuxi
[1]
Continuing images from Wuxi
It is the Chinese New Year (the year of the Bull).
Celebrate with a large meal: [1]
Lake Taihu and a recreated ancient town (part of a CCTV studio)
Solar water heaters sold in a downtown Wuxi department store (Gome). Prices convert to US dollars as about 1$ = 7 Yuan.
Bank of China in downtown Wuxi [ 1 ]
It is the year of the Bull [1]
Happy people walking in downtown Wuxi the day after new year's day [ 1 2 3 ]
Solar water heaters, again sold just like other appliances in another department store
Two buildings close to one of the open markets in Wuxi
A botanical garden (Wuxi Plum Garden and Hangshen Scenic Area) in Wuxi was donated to China by Rong Zongjin and his brother Rong Desheng. They are called patriotic capitalists, I believe. A waterwheel is seen in one of the pictures. The door ticket is about 70 Yuan.
A giant Buddha close to Wuxi and some of the countryside (The door ticket price is about 150 Yuan here).
Notice the solar water heaters.
Electric bikes and mopeds in Wuxi. I do not see gas mopeds anymore here. They are very quiet and have almost no emission. The price is right also at about $300. These are sold in Carrefour. The particular one that we were at opened 3 weeks earlier, bringing the total in Wuxi to 6. In Wuxi at least, huge problems of pollution, noise and congestion have been greatly reduced with these electric mopeds. The overall vehicular noise level is much reduced over what I remember from 4 years ago. I believe that most of the foggy areas that are seen in pictures is exactly that, fog. Lake Lihu has also been greatly cleaned with sediment having been removed over the past several years.
Carrefour has an incredible selection of food of high quality.[1 ]
In the mall you can find a large variety of small restaurants, small shops (such as the bicycle shop). This is Da Ning Dumplings ... they are quite good.
Some more sites from downtown Wuxi close to the free market.
Some of the skyscrapers under construction in Wuxi (there are hundreds in Wuxi under construction).
Year of the Bull in downtown Wuxi
Some scenes from Siuzhou (between Wuxi and Shanghai)
