Wuxi
  The city itself was fairly common, and we spent most of our time visiting several gardens. We develop a bad rapport with the tour guide, Fan. He seemed particularly interested in Yana, and at times would ignore the rest of the group. He also left us at the museum for another tour guide to take care of. What really got us annoyed, however, was when he left us at the tea pot factor and asked Peter to do the translating for us. At the end of the visit, he gave us the review form and basically asked us to put down high marks. When we didn’t, he complained to Peter.

  Yellow Mountain
  In my opinion, this was one of the better stops on the tour. It was great to hike around, and the scenery was incredible. I really liked the tour guide, William. He was interesting and was very inquisitive about American life. The food on the mountains was not very good, but I can understand because it is difficult to bring supplies up the mountain. Before people visit the mountains, they should realize that there will be a fair amount of hiking involved at this stop, with most of it being uphill.

  Shanghai
  The food in this city was great, and I would encourage people to go out on their own and try some local restaurants. One night we split up, with Peter and Gloria going to visit Peters’ relatives, and the rest of us going out on our own. The three of us went to find a pizza place to see what it would be like. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad. Since Shanghai was such a large city, I would encourage people to try the different types of food available. For instance, not far from our hotel there was a restaurant that served cuisine from western china. In my opinion, that was the best meal we had on the trip.
Our guide was ok, but she had a tendency to speak Chinese because her English was limited. We are also questioning if we paid too much for the night cruise of the city.

  For those inclined to shopping, Shanghai is a great city. The French concession seemed like a waste of time, because it was simply a bunch of cafés and upscale stores. The museums were nice, but it is hard to appreciate some of the exhibits if you have never studied calligraphy or Chinese poetry.

  Overall, the trip was a blast. One of the main things that bothered me was how the local guides were required to stop at local trades shops. Also, it would be nice if the guides would take us to less touristy restaurants. We often ate at places with many other tour groups. The food was great, but it I would have liked to see more local restaurants occasionally.

  First of all, let me thank you for all of your hard work in planning this trip. We had a great time. As Gloria said, it was the trip of a lifetime! I've compiled some of suggestions based on my experiences, which I hope will be of some use.

  Beijing
  Our guide and driver were both great. They helped us buy stamps and phone cards, and got us everywhere quickly and safely. I also think that Lee did a great job when ordering food for us. In particular, I appreciated how he ordered several bottles of drinks for us at the restaurants, instead of just one small glass as many of the other guides did. For people like me who are not used to drinking tea, its much more refreshing to have a cold drink after a long day of sightseeing.
  For future trips, it might be a good idea not to schedule any late shows for the first couple days. I think all of us were struggling to stay awake during the Beijing opera and acrobat shows.
  The trips to the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and the Great Wall were lead by Berryl. Because we were combined with a larger group, she was forced to repeat everything in both Chinese and English. In general she was a good guide and could explain all of the sights.

  Xi’an
  Melony was our guide. Her English was good and she gave us very good descriptions of everything at the tomb.

  Chendu
  Our guide, Bobby, was one of the best of the trip. He was extremely friendly and very cheerful. He even sang us a song on the long car trip. The main attraction in Chendu was the giant Buddha carved into the cliff, which was very impressive. I was frustrated, however, in that we were only able to spend a limited time at the site and had to choose whether to see the statue from up close on land or from the river. We choose the river, because it offered a better view of the entire statue. Future groups with more time may wish to consider doing both.
  Point out that there are more tourists climbing so it will take a while

  Chongqing
  The guide was not very helpful and had a tendency to speak Chinese instead of English. There were relatively few sites to see in the city and our guide left us on our own for most of the day to walk around town. Because we didn’t board the boat until late in the evening, we were on our own for most of the day we were on our own. While we got to see parts of the city that we would never have experienced, I think it would have been nice to have had a few more sites lined up. ADD but I’m not sure if that is possible in that city.

  Cruise
  The food and accommodations on the boat were spectacular. The main hostess was very friendly and spoke English fairly well. I think we all enjoyed the cruise very much and it should be on every itinerary, at least while the damn isn’t filled. Seeing the damn itself was also quite interesting.

  Wuhan
  This was probably the best hotel we stayed at (4 star) on the trip. There wasn’t much to see in this city, and it was primarily a stopover until we caught the next train. For several days prior to arriving in Wuhan, I had a sore throat. I finally decided that I couldn’t take it any longer, and with Peter’s help went to see the hotel doctor. She gave me some antibiotics and traditional Chinese medicine, and within a day my throat was feeling much better.

  Guilin
  Every visitor should do two thinks in Guilin:1)take a cruise down the river 2) take a bike ride through the countryside. With some of our free time, we rented some bikes and a local guide showed us around. I would strongly encourage that future visitors look into doing this as well, because it is great way to get some fresh air and see some small villages up close.
Our guide, Evonne, was one of the best yet.

  Hangzhou
  If you are well versed in Chinese literature, then the West Lake may have a special significance. For me, however, the lake and the surrounding parks were not that impressive. Perhaps the heat and lack of wind played a role, but overall, I think most of our group just found the lake to be like any other lake. Later, we went to see a Buddhist temple. The temple was interesting, but the large number of tourists detracted from its beauty.
  Our guide, Mike, was not as enthusiastic as some of the previous guides. He was not as talkative and seemed disinterested with the sights.

  Hi Jane and Golden,
  Please take some time reading Adam's impression of the China trip. Hopefully, we'll make our China tour better for the next college student group.
Juliana
  From: jmosier <[email protected]
  To: Juliana Chinn <[email protected]
  Subject: trip comments
  Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2004 18:48:14 -0400

  The trip went quite well. Toward the end there were a few conflicts with each other, but a month is a long time to be in such close proximity. I meant to send this a while ago, but I started my full time job not long after returning and was sidetracked. I have attached my original draft and added some further comments here.

  As a non-Asian traveler, I didn't have too any problems. Granted, people found us to be a curiosity and stared at us quite a bit, but everyone was friendly. We were attractions for beggars and salesmen around the major tourist sites and cities (great wall, Shanghai, etc?. It was upsetting to be see women with children or severely crippled people beg, especially when the grab onto you. I抳e been all over Europe and the US, and that's something that I wasn't accustomed to. In the less well known cities (Wuhan, Wuxi, etc..) we didn't have problems.

  I think that traveling in small groups like we did with a local guide was a much better option than the large bus tours. All of my travels have been with family or in small groups, so I prefer that method. Overall, the guides spoke English quite well. At times they would frustrate us and speak to Gloria or Peter in Mandarin, but usually the guides were quite good. I originally wrote a section about all of the guides, but I understand that Gloria and Peter sent you a detailed description already, so I抣l omit that portion. They probably described it better anyway. At the end of each city, we filled out evaluation forms, but were required to return them to the guides. This was an awkward
situation and at one point a guide didn't agree with what I had written and had Gloria change the evaluation. Perhaps in the future people could just save the evaluations and give them to their contact (like Lisa) before they leave.

  I'm sure we also had problems with paying more than locals would, but since
everything was inexpensive we didn't mind too much. I know Peter enjoyed bartering, but I often felt bad because everything was so inexpensive and the salesmen/women hardly made any money despite working long hours. I don't think most Americans are comfortable with bartering.

  Perhaps the most frustrating part of the trip for me was the constant 搑equired?stops at local workshops/stores. Don't get me wrong, they were interesting and we learned a lot about silk manufacturing and jade carving. However, by the third silk factory, I was getting tired, because these workshops were often just glorified gift shops. At times the salesmen pressured us hard to buy things.

  Teaching at the school was a great experience. I would suggest that everyone my age give it a try. It's interesting to see what they think about American culture. It was a lot of fun to hang out with people more or less our age and I would like to do it again sometime.

  The food was great, some of the best I抳e ever had! Every meal was a feast.
 We often could not finish all of the dishes that the guides ordered for us and felt bad about wasting the food. After about 2 weeks, however, I really craved some American food. While the Chinese food was good, I'm not used to eating Asian cuisine all the time so it was difficult for me to totally switch one's diet overnight. Luckily, we were able to stop by a McDonalds. Americans should be warned that they cannot find cold milk at breakfast. Although it's a small issue, the hot milk was one thing that I could not get
used to.

  In many ways, China is not too different that the US, especially the younger kids. I had a great time in China. I know you did a tremendous amount of work in putting this trip together. I greatly appreciate all of your hard work. We would probably still be planning this trip if you hadn't helped out!

  Thank you!,
  Adam Mosier