Michael Chmilar's Travels

  • Tall Buildings, Fast Trains

    Tall Buildings, Fast Trains

    I spent a day in Pudong, the area for tall buildings and fast trains. I got up early. Too early. I hopped on the ferry across the Huangpu River to Pudong. The trip costs Y2, and takes about 10 minutes. The ferry drops off a little too far south, though. I stolled up to where…

  • Shanghai Museum

    Shanghai Museum

    Shanghai Museum is another museum about ancient China history. They have a very impressive collection, though, and the museum building itself is very nice. I spent the morning and half of the afternoon browsing through the exhibits. One of my favorite things to see is the Chinese scroll landscape paintings, like the one above. I…

  • First Day in Shanghai

    First Day in Shanghai

    I arrived in Shanghai this morning at 7:00am. The Shanghai Metro is well-designed, and I could take it from the train station to near the hotel I am staying at. I am staying in the dorm at Captain Hostel, which, at Y70 per night, is very cheap in Shanghai. It is also probably the nicest…

  • Leaving Beijing

    Leaving Beijing

    I am travelling from Beijing to Shanghai, tonight, on a sleeper train. I have been in Beijing for four nights, and almost five days. I’ve been very busy seeing the sights, so I haven’t posted for a few days. I find that if I spend a lot of time uploading photos, I don’t manage to…

  • In Beijing, Now

    In Beijing, Now

    I arrived in Beijing this morning at 6:45am, after an overnight train journey. The trip took 11.5 hours. The soft sleeper to Beijing was nicer than the one from Chengdu to Xi’an. This one had an LCD TV screen for each bunk, and you could choose from a number of “channels”. One was playing movies…

  • Xi’an

    Xi’an

    Picking up from the ending of the Hua Shan post: When I arrived at the bus station in Xi’an, I decided to try avoiding the taxi drivers waiting for tourists, so they can overcharge them. (As a new arrival in a strange city, you are at a disadvantage: you don’t know where you are, how…

  • Hua Shan

    Hua Shan

    I got into Xi’an around a couple of days ago, after spending two nights on Hua Shan (Mt. Hua), and one night in the town below, before going up. Hua Shan is another one of those impossible-looking steep-sided mountains that become Buddhist holy mountains. Fortunately, there is a shuttle bus and cable car that take…

  • Sichuan Cooking Class

    Sichuan Cooking Class

    Yesterday, I took a Sichuan cooking class. Ten people attended the class, and we learned to make Sweet and Sour Pork, Gung Bao (Kung Pao) Chicken, Crisp Rice with Vegetable Sauce, Fish-Flavor Eggplant, and Three Shredded Vegetable Salad. Pictured above is my Sweet and Sour Pork. These are the tools we used to cook. That…

  • More Chrysanthemums

    More Chrysanthemums

     

  • Chrysanthemum Day In the People’s Park

    Chrysanthemum Day In the People’s Park

    Today is my last day in Chengdu. Tonight, I take an overnight train (soft sleeper) to Huashan. Unfortunately, I think the train will arrive too late tomorrow to get up onto the mountain tomorrow evening. I wanted to have an easy day, so I wandered around a bit, and, in the afternoon, I went to…

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