I'm going to try this again. The blogging tool ate the last blog I wrote.

I just got home from spending two weeks in China! I have always wanted to visit China, similarly to how I always wanted to visit Japan. This trip, in fact, was organized for me by the same friend who put my Japan trip together.

The first two days we spent in Shanghai, which is not only China's largest city, but it is the largest city proper in the world, with over 26 million inhabitants! That's more than any U.S. state other than California or Texas! Shanghai's skyline also includes the fourth tallest building in the world, Shanghai Tower. We spent the next day at Yu Garden, an open-air market in Shanghai which features a koi pond and a turtle pons.

After that, we flew to Sichuan Province, in the interior of China. We spent several days in Jiuzhaigou Valley, which is the easternmost part of the Himalayas, so the mountain vistas were spectacular. At one point, we were at 12,000 feet in elevation, which is the highest I've been without being in an airplane. The highest point in Arizona, where I live, is about 12,500 feet, so I was nearly at the equivalent of the tallest mountain in my home state. We also visited a Zen Buddhist monastery. I ate yak meat, which is a staple of Tibetan cuisine.

In Chengdu, we spent a day at the Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Base. Pandas are the national symbol of China, as they are only found there, and they are rare in zoos. The only two zoos in the US that have them are San Diego and the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Not only were there giant pandas there, but there were also red pandas.

The remainder of the trip was spent in Suzhou, which is where my friend lives. Suzhou is in Jiangsu Province near Shanghai, and is on the shores of a huge natural lake called Taihu Lake. We spent one night watching the colors of the Suzhou skyline change as the sun set over the lake, and another night in downtown Suzhou where there is a nightly light/water show that plays.

The last day of my China trip was spent in Wuzhen. It is a canal city similar to Venice, but much older than Venice. We rode on a goldola through the canals, and then watched a water show where images are projected onto the water vapor.

And after that, it was time to head home. My friend is a very good friend, and she wants to go to Hokkaido with me next time.

Since I had a few days left over, I spent them in Los Angeles. The highlight of that trip was when I got to have lunch with another 1UP alumnus, Noe Valladolid, aka BigMex! I had a delicious lunch of sushi, barbecued short ribs, and rice with BigMex and his wife, and then we explored Little Tokyo, which really does look like a Japanese shopping district. There's even a mall called Little Akihabara, which had a retro games store, a huge shop that sells models and action figures, and even a Sega pop-up store. I bought a Like a Dragon travel mug and a Metaphor ReFantazio artbook at the Sega store.

So that's what I've been doing. I've had a lot of fun lately.