Took the 10.10am bus to Ningbo which is around 70km and 1.5 hours away.

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Even though Ningbo is not a provincial capital but it’s still a relatively big city of 6 million. Ningbo is one of the 5 treaty ports forced to open up to foreign trade after the opium war in the 19th century.

FengHuangCheng with my 3 local Chinese friends.

FengHuangCheng is roller coaster theme park in China. However, the weather doesn’t look good so we didn’t go in.

Cixi and Ningbo is famous for seafood.

Seafood dinner back in Cixi

I met some friends at the hostel in Xiamen and they invited me to visit their hometown in Cixi.

Today is a rainy day. Went to the Shanghai Southern long distance bus station

and took the 11.20am bus (85Yuan~USD$13)

towards CiXi, a town under the jurisdiction of Ningbo with a population of 1 million.

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Crossing the HangZhou bay on the 36km bridge, which is the world longest bridge over sea. The bridge is funded by businesses in CiXi, this will cut travel time from Shanghai to Cixi from 4 hours to just 2 hours 15 minutes. Cixi is famous for its family enterprises and people here are relatively wealthy. Few cities in China with a rich stereotype are Wenzhou, Ningbo and Fuzhou.

Crossing the Hangzhou Bay

Go east towards science center.

XingYang Market

Science Center

Theater

A park

Go west to RenMinGuangCheng

Because of the world expo, there are many soldiers guarding the entrance/exit of the subway station.
Changing of the guards at 12pm

Visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum.

Plan of Shanghai

Districts in Shanghai

360 degrees movie about Shanghai landscape and demographics

Shanghai Museum

Met up with ZhiHan, an old friend to learn about the financial job market here. Moved from the Secret Garden at Pudong to Puxi, a friend Min was very nice to offer me to stay at his parents place.

Secret Garden Hostel

Housing prices are expensive in Shanghai, averaging 20-30k a square meter.

Because of world expo, there is a special day pass for the subway costing 18Yuan~USD$2.5 for a day. Started my city tour at

Shanghai stadium

Indoor stadium

XuJiaHui area which is also a shopping area.

Shanghai library.

A underground street at People’s square area

Met JianXiong, a friend at a shop for card games.

Card games seem to become pretty popular in Shanghai and there are many shops catering for this pastime.

Shanghai style noodles with Pork

Theater

NanJing Pedestrian street which is always crowded.

The bund with some old western style architecture

Visited the China MinTai museum

which is about the historical relations of Fujian and Taiwan.

From 15-19th century during the Qing and Ming dynasty, there was a huge migration of Han Chinese to Taiwan island. Most of the migrants were from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.

ZhengChengGong also called Koxinga, defeated the Dutch in Taiwan in the 16th century.

Quanzhou home cooked food by WuYin’s mum

WuYin and Elly sent me to the new Quanzhou train station

for the 12.11pm train towards Fuzhou. Got to Fuzhou train station

at around 1.10pm. Fuzhou Chang Le airport is around 50km away from the city and there are airport shuttles which depart from Appolo Hotel. Appolo hotel is pretty close to the southern bus station so took bus K1 (1Yuan) towards the south bus station and got on the 2.20pm express shuttle (20Yuan~USD$3) towards FuZhou ChangeLe airport.

On way to the airport passing by some apartments buildings, even in Fuzhou you can see China housing boom.

Arrived at the airport after at 3.10pm after a 50 minutes bus ride.

Got on the 4.45pm flight on ChunQiu airline (400 Yuan~USD$55) towards Shanghai.

Goodbye Fuzhou

ChunQiu airline is a low cost airline and sometimes the airline will offer Fuzhou-Shanghai seats up for sale for only 99 Yuan.

Landed at Shanghai HongQiao airport at 6.30pm.

HongQiao airport is located at the western part of town, so took the subway line 2 then 4 towards Pudong area. I booked the Secret Garden hostel for a night since I am afraid that rooms will be fully booked for the Shanghai world expo. It cost 80Yuan~USD$12 for an eight person dorm room, the price was jacked up from 40 Yuan because of the world expo. Got to the hostel at around 8.30pm.
I was supposed to meet up with Jason here, however he wasn’t able to enter China because he misread the term of Chinese transit visa and was sent back.

Shanghai is a pretty big city with around 20 million people. Shanghai was just a fishing village 150 years ago until it was parceled by foreign countries to be an International Settlement area. China lost the opium war and was forced to sign the treaty of Nanking which opened up Shanghai. Because the city was situated at the gateway to Yangtzi river, it became an ideal trading port and was built on the trade of opium, silk and tea. The city was also a place for vice, gangs and cheap labour then. After 1927, the Kuomintang cooperated with foreign police and gangs, the poor was exploited until the communist came. The communist rehabilitated hundread of thousands of opium addicts and eliminated child labor.

Night view of Pudong.

Peal Tower, DongFangMingZhu

View of the bund across HuangPu river

Walked around the city in the morning

Train station

A typical Taiwanese lunch (80 NT Dollar~USD$2.5)

Got on the 1pm flight to KinMen.
View of Taipei 101 from the air.

Arrived at KinMen airport

at 2pm and a shuttle took us to the harbour

for the next ferry connection. I am supposed to get take the 3.50pm ferry from KinMen to Quanzhou. However only Taiwanese and Chinese are allowed on the ferry because of immigration reason. So instead, I got on the 3.30pm ferry to Xiamen instead.

Arrived at Xiamen port at around 4.30pm. Getting off the ferry, noticed that there were many constructions going on and there are many skyscrapers standing at the water front. Hardwares in China are more impressive but softwares are better in Taipei.

Took BRT no. 2 to Xiamen train station in order to get a ticket to Quanzhou. Xiamen is not building a subway since there is not enough human density, and BRT is used instead. The BRT are buses running on special lane.

Since today is the first day of a 3 day holiday in China, there are a lot of people and most tickets are sold out. Managed to get a 7.55pm train ticket to Quanzhou (32Yuan~USD$5).

250km/hour

Since the past few weeks, I have been planning to get to Shanghai on May 2nd to meet a friend so that’s why I have been moving quickly to get there in time. Express train tickets to Shanghai from Xiamen cost 359~USD$50Yuan and the 2000km journey only requires around 7 hours. However, all tickets are sold out so I have to fly instead. WuYin who went back to Quanzhou for the holiday managed to help me booked a flight from Fuzhou to Shanghai for tomorrow (400Yuan~USD$60).

Finally arrived at Quanzhou new train station

after 40 minutes on the train. Bought another ticket towards Fuzhou for tomorrow (55Yuan~USD$8). WuYin, a university friend of mine and Elly were very nice to pick me up from the new train station.

Quanzhou new train station is pretty impressive. It’s brand new and looks like an exhibition center. Many of the high speed train station stops in China have a unique architecture.

Elly and WuYin showed me around, brought me to try out Quanzhou local food

and even arranged accommodation for me.

Met some travelers at the hostel and spent the day together.

I plan to visit Taiwan since it’s not far away from Fujian province and tried to find an affordable route to Taipei. Few years ago, direct flights from China to Taiwan weren’t allowed. Since the new government Kuomintang of Taiwan came into power, relation between China and Taiwan is getting better and there are direct flights now. Flying direct from China towards Taipei cost around 2000 Yuan. However, by taking a boat to KinMen (1 hour) then fly to Taipei cost only 670 Yuan.

An old post office

Xiamen is a clean and nicely planned mid size city.

Like most other cities, there are a lot of constructions going on. Housing prices are high so developers try to make the most out of it before the bubble burst.

The ferry terminal for ferries to Jinmen, Taiwan.

Pedestrian street, ZhongSan Road.

Old town with some interesting architecture.

Xiamen University which has one of the most beautiful campus in China.

Had lunch at the university canteen. There are a lot of food varieties at the food court.

Just right beside Xiamen University is the beach.

Some hostel mates.

Rented a bicycle for a scenic bike ride along the southern coast of Xiamen.

and cycled along the southern coast.

There is a big sign saying One Country 2 System. The sign is aim at KinMen island, Taiwan which is just across the coast from Xiamen.

Ferry to Gulangyu. After 10pm, the ferry is free from Gulangyu to Xiamen.

Gulangyu is a beautiful island 1square km in size. It’s a car free island and home to 16000 people. Traffics are banned in Gulangyu and was the island was a residence for westerners during Xiamen colonial past.

Night view of Xiamen city from Gulangyu

Was planning to visit the provincial museum but it’s Monday and most museums in China close on Monday.

Breakfast (Dry noodles and Fuzhou meatballs 7 Yuan~USD$1)

The high speed train from Fuzhou to Xiamen started running today. The 280km journey which usually takes 4 hours will be shorten to 1.5 hours taking the express train. There is a long line at the auto ticket machine because this is the first time where ticket buyers encounter the machine.

Took bus 51 to the pedestrian street.

On the pedestrian street, there are many food stalls.
(12 Yuan~USD$2)

Took bus 37 to MaWeiQu, a small town south of fuzhou city.

Shipbuilding site at MaWeiQu

Shopping Mall

Have a local hair cut for 15Yuan~USD$2 on some random street and have noodles with meatballs again (6Yuan~USD$1)

Got on the D9221 9.21pm train (85Yuan~USD$12.5) towards Xiamen.

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The high speed train is brand new and was just put into operation today.

Finally, a non squatting toilet

Every now and then, I am still amazed by the infrastructures in China. The country is planning to build 12,000 km of high speed rail track by 2012, connecting Beijing with most other provincial capital in the country within 8 hours. Reducing travel time between neighboring provincial capital to under 2 hours and cities inside province to an hour. The bullet train is called HeXieHao and is made in China. The government has a stake in many of the companies involved in building infrastructure.

Arrived at Xiamen train station at 11.11pm sharp.

Took a cab (12Yuan~USD$2) to BaJiaCun hostel (40Yuan~USD$6) since bus 3 and 21 stopped running at that time.
6 bed dorm

Arrived at Fuzhou train station

at around 10.15am in the morning after 12 hours on the train.

There aren’t any hostels in Fuzhou so walked around and found a hotel not too far away from the bus train station for 88Yuan~USD$13.

I think this is the most I have paid for accommodation in China after going around the country for a few months.

I have some distance relatives in Fuzhou. I am considered an overseas Chinese and my grandparents migrated from China during the 1940s from Fuzhou. They live at ShangJie town which is around 12km from Fuzhou. Bus (55,39) go towards ShangJie town, just jotted it down for my memory. I didn’t tell my distance relatives in advance that I am coming, I just rang them up and they came and picked me up from the city.

Went to ShangJie town which is the hometown of my ancestor.

Fuzhou style noodles

My distance cousins

Home cooked dinner

BaYiGuangChang (August 1st Square)

A big statue of Mao

West Lake which is a famous lake in Fuzhou

Typical Chinese train

Arrived at Nanchang train station at 8.30am after 20 hours on the train.

Chinese people have a hospitable culture. If there are someone coming from another place, they will usually give a warm welcome. A friend of CongTou, HaiTao whom I have never met took half day off from work and brought me to a breakfast place.
People from Nanchang like to eat noodles with soup for breakfast (6Yuan~USD$.9).

There is a big wholesale market for all kinds of goods at the west part of town. Hai Tao works as a credit card salesperson and I tagged along with him to his clients office.

On August 1, 1927, Nanchang was the site of one of a series of insurrections organized by the Chinese Communist Party. The Nanchang Uprising, led by pro-communist Kuomintang officers under Russian direction, succeeded in holding the city for a few days. The military force in Nanchang rebelled against the Kuomintang and this is the start of the civil war between the communist vs Kuomintang.

Memorial of Jiangxi revolutionary army

Most of the explanation is in Chinese and is even hard for me to understand.

About the long march

HaiTao then invited me to his place for lunch. Local home cooked food.

BaYi (August 1st) square.

BaYi is synonymous with the PLA (People Liberation Army of China) because August 1st is celebrated as the founding of the PLA army.

Nanchang is known for: The Tengwang Pavilion, a towering pavilion dating to 653AD and is considered one of “the Four Great Towers of China”

Side view

There is a museum inside the pavilion.
Hats of the official in the court.

View from the tower

In most Chinese cities, there are new and old districts. Across the gan river is the new part of the city with newer high rise buildings.

A Chinese cultural dance performance at the top floor of the pavilion

Took tour bus 1 which go towards the east part of the city. I just like to get on public bus going around the city. Went to the train station to get tonight tickets toward Fuzhou. Luckily I was still able to get ticket but only hard seat.

In Nanchang, it was said to have the highest water fountain and ferris wheel (Star of Nanhchang) in the world. Those 2 were located at the new part of the city. Tour bus no. 2 will go around the new city, however I took the wrong bus, bus no. 2 and wasn’t able to check out those places.

Visited China construction bank which HaoTao works at. Compensation in the bank is merit based. Every employee in sales is ranked weekly and everyone’s compensation is transparent on a board for coworkers to see. This line of work seems pretty competitive and unlike what socialism preachs.

My hospitable Nanchang friends.

Went to the train station and got on the 9.47pm train (87Yuan~USD$13, hard seat) towards Fuzhou.

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