Final Countdown Until China Vacation
It’s been about a week since I last posted about my upcoming preparations for my China vacation. I am now down to a final weekend before I need to get up at 5:30am to catch our bus down to JFK. I think I got everything squared away at work, or I at least I did as best I can. I am confident things are in good hands while i am away.
I probably should have started to do some packing in the last day or so to see if I am missing anything. Well I didn’t, I did pick up a new lightweight rain coat though in case of rain.
Here is a more complete itinerary for our trip. I plan on keeping a journal while I am away so I’ll write up detailed posts when I get back.
Day 1: All day travel
We start out with coach buses driving us from Albany International Airport to JFK.
We then catch a non-stop flight from JFK to Beijing. It will be around a 13 hour flight, which will put us in Beijing around 6:00pm local time. We then get our first local meal for dinner and head to the hotel to check-in for the night.
Day 2: Beijing
We start out with a full day in Beijing. We will visit the Temple of Heaven, a Jade Factory and the Temple Museum. That is all before lunch! After lunch we then head over to the Great Wall. After climbing the Great Wall we grab dinner and head back to the hotel.
Day 3: Beijing
First stop will be visiting a Pearl Factory, the Summer Palace, lunch, the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square. The day will be topped off with a famous Peking Duck Dinner.
Day 4: Transfer Day to Suzhou
We depart Beijing early to arrive in Shanghai. We don’t stay long, we take a bus to the city of Suzhou. We get a quick tour of Suzhou, Dinner and then arrive at the hotel.
Day 5: Suzhou
In the morning we will visit the Lingering Garden and take a tour of a silk factory. After lunch we then have an optional tour on the ancient Grand Canal. We take a boat tour and get some free time to explore the local town. After this tour, we visit Tiger Hill, which has a tower which leans (like the one in Pisa). We then learn about silk embroidery. Late afternoon we catch a bus to Hangzhou where we enjoy a late dinner and then have free time to explore.
Day 6: Hangzhou
In the morning we visit a tea plantation where they grow green tea. We then visit the Ling Yin Temple (Buddha Temple). After lunch we take a boat ride around West Lake in Hangzhou and explore the city on foot. We then depart for Shanghai.
Day 7: Shanghai
We have a full day in Shanghai. We will visit The Bund, Pudong economic development zone and then have an entire afternoon to explore a real Chinatown (in China, does anyone else find this funny?).
Day 8: All day travel
Our trip will be over, we will wake up super early to fly from Shanghai to Beijing and then Beijing back to JFK. Once back in JFK we catch the bus back to Albany. This seems like it will be a really long day.
So that’s the trip, I am really excited and can’t wait to get started. As I mentioned earlier that although I have not started packing my clothes yet, I do have all my Photography equipment laid out for the trip.
I knew I would be taking lots of landscape shots so I decided to rent a wide angle lens for the trip. After some quick searching on Flickr I had decided to use LensRentals.com as my source. I had emailed their customer service with some questions and they answered them right away and were very helpful. I plan to take some test shots with the lens over the weekend to get comfortable working with it. Missing from this picture is a Sony point and shoot and an HD video camera. This will be my first time using the video camera for an extended trip like this so I am excited to see what I can come up with.
I think that’s the last you’ll hear from me until I return. I’ll have lots to write about upon my return, in addition to reviewing tons of pictures.