Day 14: Last Day in Shanghai

It was a 20,000+ steps day that began with a good Chinese breakfast of soybean milk and Chinese pastries.  After that we visited three museums: the Shanghai Art Museum, a quick walk from our hostel, the Communist Party Museum and then we took the subway to Pudong to visit the Shanghai Municipal Museum in the base of the Pearl Tower.

Our first subway ride of the trip and it was on our very last day!

Traveling with ten students makes it so much easier to stick together!

The Pearl Tower, Shanghai's version of the Space Needle?

Catching the sun going down.

We all crowded into a very large elevator to ride up to the 97th floor in the "Bottle Opener" building.  We had snacks and a soft drink and appreciated the view.

Final meal of even more Shanghai dumplings and snacks.

Day 13: Fast Train to Shanghai

We left early for the train station, packing our breakfast with us on the bus.  Once we got to the train station, the students set out to find something else to eat.  Only ten students and we still pack a lot of luggage!

We did get a glimpse of more rural China on our route.

303 km/h = 188 mph!

More views along the way.

We arrived in Shanghai and stayed at the very same hostel we stayed in with the Pacrimmers, hence the evidence on the wall that we have been here before!

We gave the students the option to explore Shanghai on their own or come with us to the Urban Planning Museum.  Here is the studious group that chose the museum!

And they sure missed out!  We actually had only a little over an hour and it is top on our list for a return visit.  This shows a model of Shanghai that was fascinating to look at.

After the museum we explored some of the historic buildings.  This was built as a YMCA for foreigners in 1928 just across the street from the race track (now gone).  We went inside and looked at old photos.

We needed a snack before we met the students for dinner, so we shared a snack made inside these drums.  It had dough on the outside and seasoned vegetables on the inside and was flat like a pita.

We ate these jianbao last time we were here and told the students how incredibly delicious they were.  So, we met them at the hostel and walked to this restaurant and had a few plates of these. 

Then we walked down the street to a xiaolongbao restaurant.  These were as good as they can be, melt in your mouth!

We think we convinced them that Shanghai food beats Fujian delicacies hands down!

You can never get enough of them.

After our dinners, we walked down to the waterfront for this classic view of the Shanghai skyline at night.

And the Bund all lit up as well.

This Tibetan monk and nun asked to take a picture with us.

Day 12: Last Day in Fuzhou

Today was our first free day of the trip, meaning we had no commitments until our farewell banquet in the evening.  We had a staff member order us a Didi (Chinese Uber); and we set out to visit a place we had never been before, the Xichan Temple Complex. 

The Xichan temple dates back to 867 AD.  The temple grounds include a large park with giant banyan trees.

These temple grounds are among the top ten tourist attractions in Fuzhou, although we almost had the complex to ourselves.  The bridge stands over the Free Life Pond.

There are 36 buildings that make up the complex including temples, halls, a restaurant and living quarters.  One of the halls contains over 1,000 statues of arhats (devoted followers of Buddha).

If you can see Karl, you can get a perspective of the scale of this building.

This arhat has Buddha in his heart.

This fifteen-story pagoda was built by an abbot living in Singapore who was appointed to his position by this temple.  No wonder it is called the Return Tower.

The view from the bottom looking up.

After the temple, we took a bus to People's Park.  We got some Japanese food for lunch, visited the Fujian Museum before heading back to rest our feet before the banquet.

The banquet was held on the Fujian University of Technology's campus.  These two were served Long Life noodles in honor of their birthdays. After lots of food, toasts, song performances and lots of gift giving, we walked back to our apartment in a light rain.

Day 11: A Visit to the Old Campus

After having some adventures with our bathroom door in our apartment, we had our last class this morning.  Karl lectured and then we took the Hwa Nan bus to the old Hwa Nan campus, which is now the home of Fujian Normal University.  The students gave short talks in a graduate-level class of English translation.  The graduate students practiced their translation skills.

After the translation practice, the students received a history lesson on the Trimble family's connection with Hwa Nan and Fuzhou.

The Trimble family name is on this old building.  During the Cultural Revolution, the letters were knocked down, but you can still make out the words.

We went on a walking tour of this part of Fuzhou and admired the many old and even crumbling buildings.

We had locals with us to show us around.

The city tree (banyan) looks as old as the buildings.  

We ended the walking tour at the Saint Dominic Cathedral, which was just lit up, but unfortunately the doors were locked.

We concluded the day with a meal using the largest self-propelled lazy Susan we have ever seen.  It was so large, it had a putting green in the center!

Day 10: Quingjing Mosque and Meizhou Island

We had breakfast at our Overseas Chinese Hotel in Quanzhou and then walked to the Qingjing Mosque in the neighborhood of our hotel.  It was built in 1009 AD after the manner of a mosque in Damascus, Syria.  It is regarded as the oldest mosque in China, although it is now the ruins of the mosque.  A newly built operating mosque is next door.

We visited this mosque a year ago with Pacrimmers and it hasn't changed a bit.

This is the operating mosque next door.  We could only peak inside.  They did carry over some of the same archways from the old mosque.

After the mosques, we drove on to Putian and had yet another meal of local delicacies.  Then we took the ferry to Meizhou Island.  We arrived and set out on foot only to encounter a parade.

We learned it was one of the days that statues of Mazu return home after visiting the "mother" temple.  This statue was going home, and Karl received the honor of holding it for a moment.

I am standing in front of the Heavenly Empress Palace or the Meizhou Mazu Ancestral Temple.  Mazu is the deified form of a young woman and shamaness named Lin Mo who lived during the 10th century.  She is revered as the Goddess of the Sea and has been worshiped throughout Asia and Southeast Asia for centuries.

Another image of Mazu departing after having spent time in her ancestral home.

She is always depicted with the flat-topped imperial headdress with beads hanging down to signify she is a powerful woman.

Often she is flanked by two demons who wanted to marry her.  She promised to marry the one who could defeat her, but neither could, Consequently, they became her guardians.

Another way of conveying her power is to portray her carrying an imperial staff.

There are only six original statues of Mazu.  We saw one small one here at this temple and another very old one in Tainan, Taiwan.  This is one of the largest statues of Mazu.  After some adventures on the ferry ride back to Putian, which included Karl tripping as he entered the ferry and passing out for a brief moment, we drove back to Fuzhou and had a nice home cooked meal at the college to end our day.