Sunday, November 15, 2009

Maybe we should listen to each other...

So today, as we were enjoying our last afternoon in Harbin before going to the airport to heading down to Shanghai, we were discussing all of the travels that we had been able to do this year. As we listed off the places that we had gotten to see and how lucky we were Tina mentioned that my earlier post about how I was just following her to places she wanted to go and see, after we went to Laos for the plain of jars of course, wasn't actually true. "What?" I asked her, "Which other choices were mine?" Well Harbin topped her list, and I guess that I had wanted to get up here to see it, but Fenghuang was her choice, as was Songshan. True, and we both had wanted to see the Xinjiang province and go down to visit family in Malaysia. She then threw out our next trip, to Sanya - the Hawaii of China, as something that was also my choice. That startled me as I'm not big on going to the beaches, I had thought that Sanya was something that she wanted to see and I was just following along since she had agreed to head down to Laos again.

Yeah, turns out neither of us really cares about seeing Sanya. Somehow we had both gotten it into our heads that we were only going because the other one wanted to see it. So now we're crossing that off our list and we've got a free long weekend of travel to use up before the end of the year. The question is where to go, and do we go for natural scenery, for culture, for history, or for a city?

Here is our short list:
1. Qingdao - The German colonial city where Tsingtao beer is brewed, supposed to be beautiful.
2. Hongcun - Historical town with architecture from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Also an UNESCO Site.
3. Sanming - The town our landlord lives in, he has invited us to come up for a weekend so he can show us around and have us over for dinner.
4. Tiger Leaping Gorge - Stunning landscape in the south.

If I knew how to add a polling box to this I'd run a vote and just tally up where to go, but as it is we will just ask for any thoughts or suggestions. We will probably just end up putting the names in a hat and then just drawing one.

To think that if Tina hadn't taken the time to explain what a giving wife she is we would have ended up taking a long weekend someplace neither of us really cared about seeing...

5 comments:

Mom W said...

It's been over 3 years, and you didn't know that Tina is a very giving wife????? Shame on you!!!!!

Mark said...

In order to know that she's a giving wife I need to be told what I'm getting. I'm kind of slow that way, and then what with the not listening and all I never quite realized it. I only caught it this time because she started with "Now this is important, so listen up."

Mom W said...

Good for her

tai tai johnson said...

We live in QD. Its a great city, but not so great to visit this time of year. May, September and October are ideal times to visit... fewer tourists, bright blue skies, street BBQ & fresh Tsingtao pijiu sold by the jin in thin plastic bags.

I'd vote for Tiger Leaping Gorge!

Mark said...

Ah - thanks for your recommendation. Qingdao has been on our list for almost two years, we just haven't been able to schedule it in. I've only seen a hotel on the outskirts when I was up there quickly for work.

The cold was one of the reasons it initially wasn't something we thought about doing, but then we were wondering if we would regret not getting there once we were living back in the States. I guess that just means that we will have to make a trip back to China sometime in the future to cover all of the places we couldn't squeeze in...