Last day in Shanghai

Qingcheng hou Shan (Qingcheng back mountain)
On the way up

Last week in Sichuan was great and the weather was nice to us. On Sunday, as I already mentioned, we went to see the cute and adorable Panda bears in the Panda breeding center in Chengdu. I could watch these animals forever!!! Here's a picture that kinda sums up what they do all day, and how lazy and cute they are:

Lazy and sweet
Panda.

On Monday we took a bus to a place called Qingcheng Shan (read it like tsingcheng, Shan = mountain). There are two main places there- the main front mountain- which has a few temples on top, and some cable cars, and the back mountain- where we went- a bigger nature reservation, with one temple on top, and a few villages. We got there just after noon, and started climbing up. It was so beautiful! They did put stairs all the way, and from concrete of course- but they did it really nicely and even made the concrete look like real wood. The vegetation was amazing, a bit subtropical, and lots of it, it was so great to breathe such clean air in China.

Lots of waterfalls and fresh air

It took us about 3-4 hours to climb to the first village, and since it was already getting late, we decided to stay there the night and go down the mountain the next day from the other side. The village was obviously for tourists, most of them come there just to have lunch and then they continue going down. The room we took cost us 80 Yuan a night, which was the price after negotiating… It wasn't a nice room and it was cold there all evening (we slept with the sleeping bag on us and 2 more blankets to be warm) but we referred to it as just a place to sleep in and leave first thing in the morning. We had an expensive dinner as well, but at least it was quiet there and we were the only tourists there at night so it was nice. The next day we woke up (I already fell asleep at 20:00, and slept all the way to 08:00!!!) had breakfast and headed up to the top of the mountain- so we can go down the other side.

The bridge might look like it's made of wood,
But it's made of concrete.
Still- it's nice work.

Up on top (about 1600 meters high) the air was actually a bit thinner, and I found it harder to go up these last "few" stairs, even though the last day I had climbed so many of them with almost no prob. The way down was just as beautiful as the way up, if not more in certain spots. Again- it was all green, with lots of waterfalls, streams and the sound of beautiful colorful birds.

At the bottom of Qingcheng Hou Shan

We got back to Chengdu on Tuesday evening after trying to get there the shortest and fastest
way- but obviously in China that doesn't work, in the end you find yourself sleeping on a van for an hour- just to find out that the driver doesn't have enough ppl to go to Chengdu with, so you get off, after wasting so much time, and take the normal bus through the bus station, that brakes down in the middle of the highway, the driver goes to the back of the bus, with a screwdriver, does whatever he has to do, and keeps on going…

The last two days in Chengdu we basically enjoyed the nice weather, and met Kevin and Wang a lot, and had good food. We booked a flight back to Shanghai, with e-long (booking company online), and found out that they didn't reserve the tickets for us with the discount price (the prices change every day) coz we didn't send them a confirmation with a signature by fax. We called them and explained that the problem is that they sent us the e-mail requesting a signature in Chinese- and what can we do- we can not read Chinese, and the woman in their call center, who spoke English to us on the phone when we booked the tickets- should have known!!! After a big mess, and a lot of stress they agreed to give us the discounted price, and we could relax until Friday afternoon- the time of our flight back.

We spent the last few days here at Andrew's place, which is great – coz it feels so homey. My dad was here for a really short visit yesterday, he made so much effort to be able to be here while I'm still here, that he took a flight that goes through Istanbul and Bangkok as well… it took him about 40 hours to come here…. We spent the day together, and had a Chinese dinner at the small restaurant we went to with Kevin and Wang (the one with the old lady who speaks English, and never moved out of Shanghai). Today he already flew to his next business stop, taking with him a small bag full of stuff I have no room for, and want them to get to Israel. Thanks dad!!!

Tomorrow's our flights to Germany, I can't believe I have less 24 hours left here, I haven't left China in about 7 months and it feels weird to leave now- and leaving to Germany, not to Israel yet…

I'll try to get connected to the internet in Dresden again, but most likely we wont have internet for a while, at least until we're settled in our apartment- which we still have to choose (Rob's making appointments for us right now to see places when we're there). In the first few days we'll stay in a Zimmer (the German word for "room", it's apartments for rent for a few days, instead of taking a hotel) and hopefully we'll find an apartment that we like as soon as possible!

OK that’s it for now, hope to write here again soon!

P.S please see the pictures I added to the last post