Our shopping in Longquan finished, we left town after lunch to drive to Huangshan City. See below for 22 photos of bridges, tunnels, mountains and some amazing clouds on the way.
Category: travel
Longquan Old Town
We wanted to do some shopping before we departed Longquan. First, we visited a shop that was literally downstairs from our hotel in the same building. After that, we drove to an old section of town and walked down an old street with mainly houses in one direction and some shops in the other direction.
See below for 32 photos from our time in Longquan!
Longquan Sword Factory
Swords are the other thing that Longquan is known for, so Mom, Dad, Siqi, and I visited a “sword factory.” Didn’t look much like a factory to me! It was a bit like a theme park, and would normally have involved demonstrations by craftspeople. Unfortunately, nobody was making anything, I think because it was supposed to rain and they weren’t expecting many visitors. To be fair, they didn’t get many visitors, so we walked around and enjoyed the gardens, the architecture, the displays, and the shop in remarkable peace and quiet. Entry was free. And we didn’t get rained on. I call it a win.
See below for strangely few photos of swords but lots of photos of a sprawling complex of Chinese buildings and gardens.
Longquan Celadon Museum
I went with my mom, dad, and husband Siqi to visit the Longquan Celadon Museum, which tells about the history of celadon, a type of green-glazed porcelain or stoneware.
Off to the museum we go to be tourists!
See below for 14 more photos of our visit to the celadon museum.
To Longquan
For quite a while, I’ve been wanting to go to Longquan, a city of 252,000 people located about 4.5 hours southeast of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. Why Longquan? They’re famous for kilns that make Longquan celadon porcelain:
Longquan celadons were an important part of China’s export economy for over five hundred years, and were widely imitated in other countries, especially Korea and Japan. Their demise came after they were overtaken in their markets by blue and white porcelain from Jingdezhen. (Wikipedia)
I’ve seen celadon all over Asia (in shops and museums in Singapore, Japan, and Korea), and it’s pretty stuff. I wanted to see where it came from. So that was the first destination on our family road trip.
See below for 21 photos taken on the road to Longquan.
The Werts parents visit us in China!
My mom and dad came to visit me and my husband Siqi in China. My parents visited China and saw the sights in Shanghai, Suzhou, and Beijing some years ago, but I’m so glad they came to see where I live now and spend time with me and Siqi. We had a great time together!
Mom and Dad flew from Atlanta to Shanghai (via Seoul) and stayed in Shanghai overnight. A van brought them to Hangzhou; we hung out at home and then ate dinner at the local mall. Starting the next day, Siqi drove us in a big circle from Hangzhou to Longquan to Huangshan and back to Hangzhou, and then we all spent a little time together to Shanghai before my parents flew off again. Phew!
Our road trip looked more or less like this:
I have soooo many photos from our time together (though not as many as my dad)! So I’ve split them into 18 separate posts. Enjoy!
- Aug 17 – to Longquan (and funny English signs)
- Aug 18 – Longquan celadon museum
- Aug 18 – Longquan sword factory
- Aug 19 – Longquan Old Town
- Aug 19 – to Huangshan
- Aug 19 – Mild Spring Boutique Hotel, Huangshan (and its cats)
- Aug 20 – cable car up Yellow Mountain
- Aug 20 – walking up Yellow Mountain
- Aug 20/21 – Xihai Hotel on Yellow Mountain
- Aug 21 – walking down Yellow Mountain
- Aug 21 – cable car down Yellow Mountain
- Aug 21 – Liyang Old Street, Huangshan
- Aug 22 – back to Hangzhou
- Aug 23 – Impression West Lake show in Hangzhou
- Aug 24 – (visit with Siqi’s parents in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou)
- Aug 25 – Hengshan Garden Hotel, Shanghai
- Aug 26 – Shanghai Museum
- Aug 27 – sightseeing in Shanghai (The Bund, Yu Old Street)
- Bonus: English on signs!
cloud background by rawpixel.com on Freepik
Bills and coins from Albania
Albania is not part of the EU or the eurozone, but at least some restaurants, shops, and museums accept payment in euros. (Neighboring countries Kosovo and Montenegro unilaterally adopted the euro as the de facto national currency in 2002… Europe is complicated!)
According to Wikipedia, the Albanian currency lek (plural leke) is named after Alexander the Great, and Albania operated on a gold standard until 1939.
The value of the lek is not pegged, but at the moment, 100 leke is worth about 1 US dollar or 1 euro, so the tourist shopping math is trivial, converting from one of those currencies.
More about my experience with Albanian bills and coins below.
Oh, and here are the other two souvenirs I brought back (apart from three books).
From Tirana back to Hangzhou
Again, a journey of many pieces, though not nearly as many as to arrive:
- from the hotel to the airport (short taxi)
- from the airport terminal to the plane (very short shuttle bus ride—we could have just walked)
- from Tirana to Frankfurt (short flight, medium-sized plane)
- from the plane to airport terminal (shuttle bus)
- from Frankfurt to Shanghai (lonnnnnng flight, big plane)
- from Shanghai home to Yuhang District, Hangzhou (we hired a driver… convenient!)
See below for photos of:
- Tirana International Airport
- transfer at Frankfurt Airport
- interior of Air China plane
- Shanghai Pudong International Airport
- and something surprising I saw online after reaching home
Dajti Ekspres Cable Car
In terms of tourist activities, mostly all I did in 3 days in Tirana was walk around, look at buildings, and buy books. It was fun. But I’d read about the cable car that goes up Dajti Mountain, and I figured it would be a fun and different thing to do with Siqi in the afternoon after seeing the sights in town. So we got a taxi to the bottom station of the Dajti Ekspres Cable Car and bought tickets (1,400 leke or 14 euros each; a little over US$14), and then up we went! Totally worth it. Lovely scenery (as shown below).
On the way down, we shared a gondola with a young Albanian woman (who spoke English) and her mom. We chatted with her most of the way down. She likes traveling in affordable places in the region and collects cigarette lighters and good food. She gave us a restaurant recommendation for dinner. She also drove us from the bottom station back to the Mariott, which was very kind. I gave her my business card and an American bill and a Chinese bill as souvenirs.
Tirana, Albania (Day 3)
On the third day in Tirana, I took some cards in addressed envelopes to the hotel front desk and said I wanted to mail them. They told me I needed stamps. (Thank you, Captain Obvious!) They did not have any to sell me, or any idea that a hotel might be expected to have such things. (They were more helpful when I asked to swap some small coins with them, so as to collect a whole set.)
So Siqi and I went to find the post office and mail my cards, then went and visited some of the interesting places I’d explored previously on my own, including the book stalls at Rinia Park.
See below for photos of:
- Namazgah Mosque
- Park Fan Stilian Noli
- Statues of the Unknown Soldier and Sheshi Sulejman Pasha
- Skanderbeg Square
- Resurrection of Christ Orthodox Cathedral
