G35Driver - Infiniti G35 & G37 Forum Discussion

What can I say.. I am exhausted! The wife and I set out on a trip that was 6 years in the planning and 2 years in waiting (thanks to SARS last year)

We started out in Beijing, then a flight to Xi'an, then a flight to Shanghai, buses to Suzhou & Hangzhou, then a flight back to Shanghai, then a 13 train ride to Huangshan (Yellow Mtn) for a few days in the mountains...then a bus ride back to Tunxi, another bus to Guangzhou (then private cars to a village a few hours out to visit the wife's relatives), then a car ride back to Guangzhou (sorry, no room in the village) then a 3 hour bus ride to Macau for a dayt or two then to Hong Kong to recuperate in the wife's company's apartment before returning home. In 36 hours, we went from rural village China (no power or running water) to a $12k/mo flat in HK.

Here are some highlights for those that are interested:
At the Heavenly palace
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image002.jpg

On the Great Wall
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image004.jpg

At the Terra Cotta Soldiers pit #1
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image006.jpg

Wifey demonstrating her childhood method of catching dragon flies
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image008.jpg

At Yellow Mountain checking out the Monkey Rock (in background)
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image012.jpg

Wifey and me doing the "love lock" thing and throwing the keys away. Kinda already did that with my bank account when we got married...
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image014.jpg

Her family's village (post Cultural Revolution). Her mother and first 3 siblings lived here through the Japanese invasion and left prior to the cultural rev. Her grandparents, who were the business people / heads of the village, were denied food and medicine by Mao and died here within 3 days of each other. They are called a "Butterfly Couple"... terribly tragic and romantic at the same time. She still has family living here!
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image016.jpg

Traffic in the Village (on the way to the grandparents' grave)
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image018.jpg

A few days later in Macau, finding the street where my wife grew up before immigrating to the US.
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image020.jpg

Her childhood home... back for the first time in 30 years.
http://www.havill.net/images/china04/image021.jpg

All in all, many miles, many languages, northern chinese food sucks the big one, Cantonese food rocks!!!! Weather was not all that bad, 80-90 degrees and rainy, although we had a quite a few non-rainy days. Saw the sun 3x and the moon once.

Caught a cold, got over it, got stung by a bee in yellow Mountain, drank beer made from bitter melon and got stared at by a lot of villagers.

If anyone is traveling a cross country tour of China, let me know... there's a quite a bit more I could share, but I'm probably already in trouble for posting this in SoCal instead of off topic. But, since most of my G35driver friends are in the forum, i'll ask for forgiveness this time around.

Cheers, ted

(damn, it's good to be back!)

(p.s. I only saw one skyline in HK... no V35's though)

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