Tour, RUSHHHHH

Wow, I just finished a week and a half of traveling around China. I went to Hungzhou, where they are famous for the Westlake, among other things. It was incredibly beautiful. i saw a show while I was there that was directed by the same man that put together the opening ceremonies for the olympics. He is incredible. The lights, the synchronization, and the creativy was spectacular. Then our group went to Nanjing. Also some neat things here, but sad as well. In the 1930's China had a huge conflict with the Japanese in which Millions of Chinese people were killed. We visited a memorial in Nanjing where 300,000 people had died. It was extremely sad, as you might imagine. From Nanjing we went to Suzhou. in Suzhou we visited some famous gardens, including the Humble Administrator's Garden. In all three of these cities we went on long tours that lasted as long as 10 hours. It was amazing to be able to see sites that were thousands of years old, and visit stunning temples, amazing how much you can see in a day. There was also so much shopping. Everywhere I went there were more shops, and more things to buy. I was in awe that so many little shops could stay in business when a lot of what they were selling was the same.
After that week long tour of a day long tour, a day of traveling, I went to Shanghai with just a few other girls. Shanghai has something like 13 million people, and just seeing a city with that many people was shocking. Everywhere I went there seemed to be more people. The Subway there at rush hour is crazy. People pushing people to get on, the doors beeping, and people still rushing to get in. You have to be pushy or you have no chance for survival.

Here is a picture of me in Hungzhou




Here are some pictures from the Nanjing area




Pictures from the Humble administrators Garden



Picture from Shanghai
the first one is from the top of some building we wandered into, and the second one is me eating my new favorite dessert. They are candied plums, and they are so goood




I just go to Ecuador! more on that to come!