So, try to explain to me again, where are all these cities?
Remember that my idea was to stay away from Beijing. I also did not want to take the time on this first trip to travel out to the West Muslim area or to troubled Tibet. There is a direct 13 hour flight from Boston to Shanghai. Sounds good to me.
So here is China with my area blocked out.
And here is the block from the above map with the 7 towns numbered in red from the first, Wuhan, 1 to the last Shanghai, 7.
Number 1, at the left is under the big city of Wuhan. I spent a night at the airport hotel after landing in Shanghai but took a noon train out to Wuhan the next day, Saturday September 7. Stayed there Sept 7-11
Number 2 is Wuyuan Skywells. Stayed here Sept 11-15. It is not in a city but in a very small village. Shywells is the name of the Inn. Wuyuan is the name of the area and the village is called Yancun on Google Maps.
Number 3 is Huizhou Ancient City. Stayed Sept 15-18.
Number 4 is meant to point to Shaoxing, above it. Stayed Sept 18-21.
Number 5 is meant to point to Hangzhou. I stayed there Sept 21-24. I had to backtrack a little from Shaoxing to get there but that seemed to make the most sense as I was going onto a town North of Hangzhou next.
Number 6, almost there, is meant to guide your eye to Suzhou, below it. I was there Sept 24-27.
Number 7, Shanghai, I was there Sept 27-Oct 3.
The idea was to go out to Wuhan and work my way slowly back. The first two stops, Wuhan and Skywells I stayed 4 nights, then 3 nights each in the next 4 cities and lastly 6 nights in Shanghai. As I explain elsewhere, after locking myself into the dates Sept 6-Oct 3, I found out that October 1st kicked off a one week celebration of 70 years of Communist Party rule. Many people take the week off to travel. The logic was that Shanghai is a world city, it operates regardless. I was not sure of the situation in smaller cities so I set up the travel plan to be in Shanghai for the celebration. Worked out fine. Everything remained open. Of course I really don’t know what it would have been like if I had been in Wuhan for the celebration.
It has been suggested that it is better to start in a World Class city and slowly delve into the back country. I kind of liked starting as the only Westerner and then slowly coming across more craft beer and people who looked like me.