An important reason for my visit to Hangzhou was to visit a recently restored historical site dating to the Southern Song Dynasty: Deshou Palace.

But that attraction did not open until 9:30, so first we casually ambled around a lovely nearby neighborhood.

Deshou Palace was an absolutely wonderful site. The building was a reconstruction carfully designed to match the original appearance. It was paced full of artifacts as well as artwork related to the history and culture if the era. Various panels provided text that gave historical background .

An interesting modern twist was a huge interactive video display with a seemingly random collection if Chinese written characters that floated downwards. If you touched a character, it triggered the screen to display a relevant poem!

Historically this palace had been a sort if retirement quarters for the emperor. It had included extensive gardens of which only a small section has yet been restored .

A beautiful place! I could easily have spent a whole day there. It was a shame that our train tickets forced us onward to Tongling, where Jim wanted to show me his hometown!

Decent weather today! No sign of rain!!

First I spent some time exploring the area around the Grand Canal. I viewed the canal from walkways along its bank. I also rode a “water- bus” to the picturesque Gongchen bridge.

Later I went to the far side of beautiful West Lake, and visited Leifeng Pagoda.

Still later I met up with my good friend Jim ( the ” young scholar”), and we returned to Hangzhou by one of the wooden tourist boats that cross West Lake.

Refreshing plum juice, and a dumpling snack.

Nanjing: the “Southern Capital”. This was my fourth visit to this former imperial capital city (also capital for a while during the Republic).

During this visit my focus was seeing my friend Violet, and a pair of historical sites related to Zheng He, the renowned admiral during the early Ming Dynasty whose immense “treasure fleet” explored southeast Asia, India, and even areas of Africa’s eastern shores! Unlike typical “western” expeditions, the goals were trade, goodwill, and world investigation.

Unlike the later Christopher Columbus, Zheng He actually *did* arrive in India, and was not so stupid as to confuse new, unknown regions with India.

Nor did Zheng He spread disease and enslave the people he met.

In Shanghai I visited Bamboo and her husgand

In Shanghai I visited my good friend Bamboo, and her husband Sun Yiyueh (Cyrus).
This made me very happy! I met Bamboo many years ago on my second trip to Nanjing.
Some of you are familiar with the various videos I produce to help “westerners” learn a bit about China. Bamboo has played a crucial role in the success of the videos. As originally produced, these used the “voice” from “Google translate” so demonstrate the Chinese pronunciation of various place-names. That Google audio was pretty terrible, and I wanted to improve it to better server the viewers. I remembered that Bamboo had done extensive work on Chinese television, so I asked her if there was any chance she’d help with the needed audio improvements. She graciously agreed to give me assistance and over the years has continued to provide audio clips for that series. This makes a huge difference for the viewers!

I suppose I “don’t get out much”. I had never seen such a thing, but starting with the hotel in Shanghai, I encountered robots at each Chinese hotel I stayed in! There are robots that vacuum the floor, and others who either pick up or deliver items to guests’ rooms! How cool is that!!!!???

Well, it was a “long haul”, but I made it to Shanghai.
Getting there involved a 2.5 hour drive to Denver from our (new) hometown in Pueblo, Colorado. An overnight stay in a hotel in the general vicinity of Denver International Airport. then up before the roosters to catch a 6:00 AM flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth.
There I boarded a flight to Shanghai. Ironically, about 75 minutes into the flight, the airplane flew directly over Pueblo… my starting point the day before! (I saw this on the “real time” in-flight monitor screen on the airplane!