It is the second longest bay bridge and the third longest bridge in the world. This massive miracle locates in one of the most active bay areas in the world, Hangzhou Bay. It connects two of the busiest cities in China – Ningbo and Shanghai. There are many options for us to go from Huangshan to Shanghai, but we chose bus ride instead to just go through this legendary bridge.

Earlier in Huangshan we watched a documentary about this bridge. The engineers needed to conquer challenges with natural gas underneath the water, powerful tides and wind. I am sure it took more than what they introduced to build this bridge. But taking a bus ride on the bridge actually took less time than I expected. I realized that the entire bridge is not flat all the way down, instead, its middle part is higher than its left and right ends.

China is famous for its many massive engineering projects. We were lucky to visit many of them during this program including the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. It is amazing to see how engineering technologies have been developed in China. China has set many records for its engineering projects including many longest bridges and tallest buildings. The Chinese government has output a fancy national image with Chinese intelligence and technologies. However, when we are proud to put billions of RMB into a massive project to build “the longest”, “the tallest” and “the biggest”, we still have tons of social security issues that are waiting for money to solve.

Chinese food is part of traditional Chinese culture. One amazing part of Chinese food in China is that all places have different local food and they are all good. More importantly, they are cheap and good.

In Dalian, we tasted many kinds of seafood: crabs, scallops, sea cucumbers and many other foods that I even did not know their Chinese names. They were cooked in different flavors: salty, sour, spicy etc. They were fresh and good.

In Xi’an, I had the best noodles ever. It is called “saozi” noodles in Chinese. The noodles themselves had the shape of flat and they were not very long. But they smell good and tasted like sour and salty with soup. More importantly, they cost only 10 yuan (1.6 dollars). I also tried noodles in other cities. In Chongqing, everything is spicy. I walked into a small restaurant and when I asked not to put any spice in my noodles, the waitress looked me in a weird way. The bowl of noodles looked red from inside out when it was put on my table, so I started to wonder if I could survive because I do not love spicy food. Surprisingly, it was not spicy at all, and it was good as well.

At Old Street in Huangshan, I tried out many different kinds of food like wonton soup and Chinese pizza. One thing that impressed me most was a robot that served food for us. In Shanghai, we had hot pot on Nanjing Street. We put meat and vegetables into the hot pot to boil until they are ready. The food was good except that it was much expensive. I also tried juicy dumplings near our hotel. It was pretty amazing that all the soup is wrapped inside the dumplings. They were good food for breakfast but could not fill my stomach at dinner.

Thousands years of history feeds great culture and traditions of Chinese food. Large area of territory provides millions of materials and tastes for dishes. Some place like salty, while others may like sweet or spicy. Chinese people appreciate look, smell and taste in food as well as their freshness and nutrition. It gave us chances to experience different types of Chinese food and their stories while travelling from north to south and from west to east of China.

(Above) Chinese Pizza called “guo”

(Above) Noodles on Old Street, Huangshan

We visited Xinli’s hometown on May 28^th. The rural areas of the country are much different than the cities. It is quiet and beautiful. Everything is green, clear and fresh… and there is no traffic. Being a city girl living in one of the busiest cities in the country, I easily fell in love with this kind of small town. Most of the houses are painted in white based on local customs, and they are very close to one another. Local people have been living in those towns from generations to generations and it is a good way to keep relationships with neighbors.

We visited Xinli’s mother’s home, a traditional Anhui style house. The first floor has enough room for all forty of us, and the second floor has mainly bedrooms. We also visited a local elementary school. The kids were kind of scared of us when staring at us as strangers. Their classrooms are small. No air conditioners in the humid. No computers. All the chairs are benches that can sit more than two kids. But I could tell that kids who are getting education in this environment are happy. They believe that knowledge can change their life.

Being away from the bustle-and-hustle of cities, people there are leisure, kind and modest. Many people grow corns, tea and some other vegetables for living. All they depend on are from the nature: rain, vegetables and lands, and more importantly, themselves. People’s life has been tremendously improved in recent years due to the growth of Chinese economy. For example, most of the households use solar energy in their old houses. However, we cannot deny the differences between cities and countryside of China. Hopefully when rural towns are catching up with the speed of Chinese development, they are still able to keep most of their old traditions that have been passed for thousands of years.

Honestly, I have never visited this city before. I was born and grew up in Beijing, another capital city of ancient China, but I was always told since young that this area as well as the Yellow River is the root for all Chinese people. The yellow river feeds great civilizations of ancient China and Xi’an was the capital city of multiple dynasties. I was glad to witness that this place contains so many histories that are still being mentioned by people.

I started to love this city the moment we entered the city wall. Plus they have more than that, for example, the Bell Tower, the Drum Tower, the Goose Pagoda… all of which have been there for thousands of years. Cycling on the city wall, I was surprised by the great combination of history and modern life of Xi’an. All of the ancient masterpieces are protected so well that they are part of the modern city now. People enjoying chatting, working out and walking down the streets which have hundreds years of history. I could imagine how busy it was in ancient golden time when businessmen, politicians and scholars coming back and forth. But it is also one of the most important cities in middle China now.

Cruising along the Yangzi River, we saw different sceneries of Chinese culture. The mountains, the river, the trees… everything is green. Our boat went through many gorges along the river. It was amazing to see more awesome scenes after the boat made turns. There are narrow “roads” build upon the edge of the mountains. They have a history of thousands of years. People in the ancient time used them for transportation. It was impressive that people could build those roads at steep mountain faces.

There are some little towns built on the mountains. People have been living in those places from generations to generations. They enjoy the gifts from the nature, the beautiful river and mountains, and they built their own culture and civilizations. They probably are not rich, but they are wealthy carrying the great fortune that they inherit from their ancestors.