Hey - just thought I'd post a little about Beijing with the Olympics almost upon us. I'm not sure how the media will report on the city, but we were there while the Olympic machine was gearing up.

Cambodia, the glory of Angkor Wat

Vietnam, from South to North, Christmas to New Years Eve

Thailand... from south to north, at sea or on land.

We've made it home, we got to ride the maglev, stand in line, run through an airport and go through US customs.

But we made it home.

If only I could say the same about our baggage...

More on food adventures during our travels on the second leg of our trip...

I can't begin to describe how much fun this trip has been.

I _can_ describe just how much I'm looking forward to coming home. Both Brea and I are done. We are all travelled out. We actually hit that point a little over a month ago but pushed on through China. I'm glad we did but I'm even more glad that today we board our flight for TO.

Only one more tourist thing to do. Since I found out about it, I've been insisting that we take the Maglev (Magnetic Levitation) train to the airport. I was lucky enough to ride on one at Expo '86 in Vancouver but Brea has never had the pleasure. It is only an eight minute ride but apparently you hit ground speeds in the range of 450 Km/hr

Woosh!

See you all soon.

We mainly visited these cities as everyone raved about how lovely they were.

Suzhou had a number of gorgeous gardens, our favourite was actually the smallest "Garden of the Master of Nets". Several of the gardens, hundreds of years old, are in a group with an UNESCO World Heritage designation. The design focuses mostly on water, green plants/bamboo, rock, and small terraces or pagodas. I don't know how to really do it justice, so you'll just have to look at the pictures once we have them up ^_^ We visited the silk museum one morning as well and viewed some nice examples of silk patterns through the ages and working weaving equipment.

I also got sick (a cold) starting here. Bleah...

Hangzhou is a city with a huge lake in the middle - again, quite picturesque. We walked around the largest island, accessible by bridge, and took a boat across the lake (3 km wide) to two small islands with various gardens and ponds with large schools of koi (like large goldfish). Still feeling sick, we didn't do much else here, though we did spend a couple hours wandering through a large series of department stores.

Short, I know, but I was all stuffed up or runny or headachy or sore throaty the whole time, and so my memories are a bit hazy... see Darcy's wonderful pictures later!

Malaysian photos - Kuala Lumpur's urban landscape, Cameron Highlands rainforest and tea plantations and more...

So close...

Feb 1 & 2:
Hangzhou (a big lake mainly)

Feb 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7:
Shanghai

Feb 8:
Flight day!

12:15 Leave Shanghai
15:05 Arrive Hong Kong
3 hours of travel

16:35 Leave Hong Kong
20:50 Arrive Toronto
17 hours of travel

So while we are in transit about 20 hours, we arrive only 8.5 hours later on the same day...

Three days in this city was just enough I think. While the weather was still cool, we got out more and enjoyed ourselves. Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu province and a large, modern city with important ancient and modern historical roots.