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JISHOU, HUNAN — I’m not sure if inserting the map in the previous will show up in Facebook Notes, so I made it a separate post.
Courtesy of Google Maps and some amateur Photoshopping, here is the route I took. Shanghai is at center right and Changsha is bottom left. Jishou is off the map, to the left (west) of Changsha. The route represents about 1,200 km (740 miles) of rail travel in 9 hours, including an hour of transfer time between the two Wuhan railway stations.
 Major cities along my high speed rail route There is a handy English language website, www.cnvol.com, that keeps a comprehensive, up-to-date search engine for Chinese trains. I use it to plan my travel and to specify which train I want when I buy tickets at the ticketing office. This map of the Chinese rail system is from cnvol.com.
 China Railway Map, from www.cnvol.com Permanent link to this post (151 words, 3 images, estimated 36 secs reading time) Possibly related posts:
SHANGHAI – I’ve been to Shanghai before, but only to its airports. Taking a shuttle bus from one airport to another doesn’t count as visiting a city. This time I decided to fly into Shanghai, hang out for a few days (money permitting), then take the train back to Hunan. Two friends were there also, so I had some guides to help me along.
By this time, I’m almost an old hand in Beijing, having visited several times now. The travel books say Beijing and Shanghai are both immense, crowded cities, but there the similarities end. It’s like comparing Washington, D.C., with New York City.
This city has a completely different feel from Beijing. While Beijing is steeped with hundreds of years of history, Shanghai is a relative upstart, imbued with just over a century of international wheeling dealing. Western dominance of Shanghai ended decades ago, but the West never really ever left. Maybe that’s why Shanghai feels more cosmopolitan and “with-it” than Beijing, which is no slacker either.
 The Shanghai World Financial Center behind the Jin Mao Tower Both cities have public transport systems that put most American cities to shame. The subways are fairly clean and efficient, and easy to navigate. I had more trouble navigating the LA Metro than I did with the Shanghai Metro. In Shanghai, it’s at least more obvious which side of the platform to stand on to get to your destination. Signage in LA is minimal, or maybe more impressionistic
I did the typical touristy things, visiting the Bund (Wai Tan), the Pudong skyscraper district, where I rode to the 100th floor of John Bunyan’s bottle opener, the World Financial Center, and Yuyuan Bazaar, which offers a smorgasbord of Chinese food and handcrafts. Time did not permit visiting Yuyuan Gardens or the Temple of the City God, both nearby.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — So, here’s a more detailed travelogue to follow up on the post I sent from my cell phone last week.  Yalong Haijiao in Sanya, Hainan As I mentioned, students here in their next-to-last year take a class trip, so four groups of students were planning trips to Hainan 海南, a tropical island in the South China Sea, Beihai 北海, a tropical seaside southern resort city, Guilin 桂林, a picturesque city nestled among mountains and rivers in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region 广西, and Fenghuang 凤凰, the ancient city about two hours from Jishou 吉首. All four groups asked me to join them.
Oy, decisions, decisions!
The Beihai group asked first, but their trip was only four days long. With a half-day on the train each way, they really only had two days in Beihai. The Hainan group asked me, too. Their trip was seven days, with almost four spent in Hainan. The Guilin group asked, but later canceled their trip — some joined the Beihai tour, and the rest went to Fenghuang.
In all, about 100 students went to Fenghuang, primarily because it was much cheaper than the other trips, and required less bus travel. (I’ve noticed that a relatively higher number of Chinese than American students have motion sickness problems, at least from anecdotal evidence. This discourages a lot of them from traveling.)
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HEFEI, ANHUI — I have spent nearly a week in Hefei 合肥, where a friend of mine from JiDa now lives with her husband. They married in June, but because of exams I and her other university friends couldn’t come then. This was in some ways a make-up trip, though I had already posted a wedding gift.
MeiMei is fully bilingual in Chinese and Russian, thanks to several years living in Minsk as a student. Her English (and maybe her Chinese, though I cannot tell) has a Russian accent. In addition, she’s an excellent pianist.
Her job at JiDa was as translator/interpreter for the exchange students and music teachers from Ukraine, but midway through last school year, there was less call for her linguistic abilities. Meanwhile, still unmarried at the age of 30, MeiMei was facing the Chinese cultural pressure to find a husband before she got “too old.” So, she decided to quit her university job, and go back home to Hefei to find a mate, while living with her parents and supporting herself teaching piano and Russian.
About two weeks ago, she and I were chatting on QQ, and she asked about my plans for the future. MeiMei suggested I consider working in Hefei. Then I asked if I could visit her this month to see what Hefei is like. She enthusiastically said yes. So, in short order, I and her other friend and former neighbor, Ailsa, were planning a week’s trip to Hefei.
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