Day 7 and 8
We left Jiaxing Nanhu District yesterday morning and headed about 25-30 miles (I think) up the highway north and west to Huzhou Wuxing District. We checked into out hotel and then the fun began. We drove to the outskirts of the city and had lunch at a farm/park/resort then headed back into town to visit a few manufacturing establishments, including a high-end women's clothing manufacturer who makes clothes for retail stores like Ann Taylor, a manufacturer of exterior LED lighting (streetlights, bollard lights, spotlights, etc). The tours were pretty interesting. Following the factory tours, we west to the Wuxing District offices for a set of official meetings and they went very well.
Today we toured Fieying Pagoda, which we climbed via narrow starways to the top and 8th floor. We then visted Huzhou University's old and new, with its 10,000 students. Tomorrow we head back to the beautiful city of Hangzhou for a couple of days before moving on to Beijing. Zaijian for now.
Day 9
We left Huzhou Wuxing District to head to Hangzhou headed to a meeting with the deputy director of foreign affairs for the Zhejiang Province. The meeting went well, and was quite short. After the meeting we visited Lingyin Temple, a buddhist temple in the hills above Hangzhou. The site of the temple was very wooded and made for a nice walk this morning. After the temple, we had McDonalds for lunch and a meeting with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation's Zhejiang Province Field Office manager, Josh Zhao. We had a nice but brief meeting to discuss future opportunities for promotion of Valparaiso within Zhejiang Province. Tomorrow we get to enjoy more of beautiful Hangzhou including the silk market, night market, and bike riding around the lake I think.
Day 11
Today we left Hangzhou and caught an early morning flight to Beijing on China Eastern Airlines. We went to the Great Wall. We visited the wall at the Badaling site, which is closest, or about an hour from Beijing. What an incredible sight!! It's hard to believe where the path of the wall travels, straight up steep hills and down into deep valleys in many cases. The name Badaling means "8 levels" in Chinese. Matt and I made it to half way between levels 5 and 6 before we literally thought we would die from the climb. The view from that point is absolutely amazing! Going back down wasn't quite as bad as going up, but it was pretty tough in its own right. The chinese have a saying which translated is "you're not a real man until you've climbed the great wall". I would have liked to have gotten to level 8 at the top point of the wall in the Badaling section, but the climb from 6 to 8 was twice as steep and almost exactly the same lenghth as 1-6.
We headed back to Beijing and stopped to see the olympic village "dream world" and the Olympic Green. This was a pretty cool experience. We saw the water cube where Michael Phelps won multiple golds, and the very unique and interesting "Bird's Nest" National Stadium from the outside. Tomorrow we visit Tian'an'men Square and the Forbidden City as well as the Summer Palace and hopefully the night market here in Beijing.