High-speed train travel

     I think train travel is one of the best ways to see a country. This also had the extra benefit of going at 202 mph. The Chinese have more high-speed train lines than all other countries combined.

   Zongda paid for our first class train tickets from Shanghai to Quanzhou.  The five hour trip went inland a bit as it went south.  I was first amazed at the amount of high-rise residential buildings that were along the route. Then by the amount of new construction and finally by the number of units that were empty. The landscape was beautiful with rivers and rice patties leading into mountains and tea plantations

Picture perfect

Lots of commercial farm operations. Lots of mouths to feed.

If you zoom in you’ll see a lot of people fishing around this one man-made pond

Trees with yellow and red tops were common all along the route

There were lots of small private areas between rail lines and highways

Up in the mountains, we got into fog

The artistry of tea hedges 

New Western style Highway system throughout the country

I ended up sitting eight cars behind the group. Remember the problem that Zongda tried to fix on day one. It was fine, but there was nobody to tell me that the upper tray lifted up and below it was a large amount of rice. I thought it seemed a bit heavy

It was eerie, seeing completed projects with nobody living in them

When we arrived and were met by a friend of Zongda‘s, Victor, in a full-size Lincoln navigator who drove us close to our hotel. We had to walk down a pedestrian alley to then climb three stories to our very nice rooms.

Even though they called them, pedestrian walkways They still allow a large amount of electric scooters to travel up and down at high speeds so you have to always be on your toes

I learned quickly to use the translation app on my phone so that I could run the air conditioner in the room. It also came in handy for reading menus, street signs and information at tourist sites.