This is our 3rd day in Beijing.

The city has an interesting mixture of new and old.

Here is a picture from our hotel room main window. You can’t quite see it, but down below is a Starbucks, and a western styled mall featuring expensive restaurants, name-brand stores such as Gucci store, and VERY expensive European sports car dealerships.

Here is a picture from our hotel room side window. An old neighborhood along side a Hutong. I can walk to this Hutong side, and pick up 10 steamed dumplings for 3 Chinese yuan (less than 50 cents at current exchange rates) then stop by Starbucks to get my caffine fix for 28 Chinese yuan. Oh, and also a couple of donuts for my kids for 12 Chinese yuan each.

I am exhausted from combating the massive crowds everywhere in Beijing since we arrived. We are going to the Great Wall tomorrow. I am scared just thinking about all the people we are going to bump into there…

We arrived at the ancient capitol city of Xian yesterday. We spent most of today admiring Qin Shihuang’s Terra-Cotta soliders.

I am beginning to feel like a Jiuzhaigou promoter, as I need to rave about this unique natural wonderland some more.

We went back to Jiuzhaigou for a second day to explore the other side of the park. We took the park bus all the way to the top of the mountain again, and hiked most of the way down. The newly and well-constructed hiking trail is blessed with ever changing scenery, and almost always partnered with cascading rushing water, amidst green mountains, crystal clear blue lakes, and so many gorgeous waterfalls.

Jiuzhaigou means the valley of nine villages, nine Tibetan villages actually. Inside the park, only three of the Tibetan villages can be visited, the other 6 villages are still deep in the mountains, and there are not currently any roads that lead to them. Besides hiking all day, it was a nice treat to stop at one of the villages, where we got to visit some of the tibetan homes, and buy some local arts and crafts and some refreshements and sweets as well. The local Tibetan villagers were friendly.

I took hundreds of pictures again. It is just so beautiful here. Every scene that came into my vision was worthy to be remembered forever.

Here are just a few of the pictures I took.

We spent our second day in Jiuzhaigou County visiting Huanglong.

Huanglong is translated as Yellow Dragon in English. It is a three hour drive from Jiuzhaigou, where we were staying. We booked a private car for this visit. Upon arriving Huanglong entrance, we took the cable car all way up, and hiked the entire way down as we marveled its grand beauty, and stopped countless times to take photos. It took us about 4 hours to explore the Yellow Dragon.

Huanglong was definitly worth the day trip. It is simply a fairyland. The colors of the lakes and ponds are impossible to describe with words. And even if you were right in front of it, you still might not believe it is real. My 9 year old kept insisting that someone had put food colors into the ponds.

We left our hotel in Jiuzhaigou at 8AM, and got back at around 6PM. It was another amazing day.

We are in Jiuzhaigou (Aba Perfecture Sichuan), China.

The beauty of the nature reserve here is stunning. I found myself taking a picture every 10 steps or so. I took way too many pictures! Just can’t help myself. If I were to stay here many more days, I felt sure that my index finger will grow bulging muscles of its own.

My cousin and his daugter came to pick us up right after breakfast. He drove us to the beautiful countryside of Hangzhou surrounded by mountains. Somewhere within these mountains were amazing caves.

A small boat transported us deep inside a cave. After a 10 to 15 minute ride, we went on foot to explore the rest of the huge cave. The staff inside the cave gave us water proof tall boots and hard hats to wear.

This cave is surrounded by cool crystal clear running water. We got to see some breathtaking waterfalls inside the cave. We were in awe with mother nature’s secretive beauty.

Well, it is quite easy if you are on Westlake, Hangzhou.

We devoted an entire day worshipping the lake on and around it all. First, we enjoyed a lakeview breakfast buffet offered at our hotel, where I had coffee and tea, porridge, steamed meat buns, and very green looking local vegetables. The kids had milk and quite a few sides of buttered bread, and hubby wanted to try all kinds of food, so he piled on a mountain of food onto his plate.

After our breakfast, we went to walk around the lake carrying our full tummies. A local boat man talked us into boarding his small private boat for a ride. We spent most of the morning on his boat, relaxing and enjoying the boat ride, and being carried to an inner islet for a visit, before finally being brought back to near our hotel.

Then we were hungry, so we ate lunch at a local restaurant, and it seems the food does not disappoint here. Except the restaurant made us pay for our napkins.

After lunch, we were determinted to walk the section of the lake that is the most beautiful. Apparently, everybody else had the same idea, and the path was covered with people. Luckily, most people do not walk the entire length of the never ending path, so gradully the crowd easied, and we shared the long tree-lined thin walking path along the lake with a deserving few.

When we finally arrived at the other main section of the lake, the crowds of people slowly surfaced again, and we had had enough of walking by then, and hopped on an open-air lake circulating tram to enjoy the lake with far less energy.

By then it was 5PM, we were exhausted. So we found a small coffee shop by the lake to re-fuel. The kids shared an ice cream sundae, hubby had a cheese cake, and check out the lovely cup of coffee they made me.

After this short stop, we were ready for more.

We had dinner with my cousin, his wife, and their young daughter. My cousin is very good at ordering food at restaurants, I loved everything, and ate too much again. The kids hardly ate anything–they don’t like unfamiliar food.

After dinner, we went to a night market together. It seemed so unusual that on a Monday night, the night market can still be so lively, and full of people, with local vendors kept busy and smiling, because they are making money.

After we got back at our hotel, it was around 10PM. We decided to take another night walk rather than going to bed. We were immediately glad that we did, the sidewalk by the lake was full of people sitting with friends, young lovers walking hand in hand, families relaxing together, and young children still out late playing and acting crazy.

We heard disco music in the middle of all this, and found ourselves in front of a group of people dancing together, they were men, women, young and old. But most of them are middle aged. They weren’t dancing with each other, they were ALL dancing together doing this incredibly synchronized routine. It looked fun. I was thinking about joining them, but I didn’t want to be the only one messying up this dance troop’s routine. Perhaps tomorrow night, I will find them, and join their dance.

We took a direct flight from Taipei to Hangzhou, China earlier today. We checked into a hotel right by the waters of famous Westlake. This is the view from one of our hotel room windows. Very beautiful here…