I’ve Been Everywhere, Man
Via the HaoHao Report, I found one Mark Wang’s China Map site. He’s whipped up a little web-based system which allows you to check off the provinces in China you’ve visited and then generate a map with them highlighted in red as well as the HTML script to display it on your own site. He even offers a tactful apology to those offended by his rendering of Taiwan as a “province” of China. I personally refer to the island properly as the “Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier of Imperialist American Hegemony,” but his sensitivity is nonetheless appreciated.
At any rate, here’s what I hope my map will look like by the end of the year after I visit Shanghai, Hangzhou, Beijing, and Xi’an:
While this is a nice tool that Mark has created, I can hardly say it’s original. World66.com has been doing the same thing with the nations of the world, U.S. states, and other political divisions for quite some time. They don’t, however, have a provincial China map.
You will have some additional time to use for vacationing. Usually around Thanksgiving. If you have the money, I strongly suggest going to Sichuan. The food is superb, and the attractions are great. Chengdu is a relaxing city (much more relaxing IMO than Hangzhou or Shanghai) and seeing Panda’s in a “real” habitat is quite the site. I remember getting a plane ticket, round trip, for about 1500 yuan, which seemed pricey. I saw them 900 at one point. Or maybe that was one way. Either way, its cheap. Xi’an is cool, but has too many tourists.
↓ Quote | Posted August 27, 2006, 7:23 pmThanks for the plug… =) Yeah, this is based exactly on World66 and I’m aware it’s not original at all… I just wanted to fix their glaring omission of the Middle Kingdom.
↓ Quote | Posted August 28, 2006, 2:46 amI’d like to confirm Jared’s observation that Xi’an is full of tourists. We spent our honeymoon last year visiting all the tourist traps in China, and Xi’an was on the list and full of people like us: tourists.
We stopped in Hangzhou and Shanghai as well, but we didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time in either place. Took a boat across West lake and visited some temple, and then off to Shanghai to see the Bund and shop on Nanjing street.
The one memorable thing about Hangzhou is the huge, towering Howard Johnson hotel. It has to be the fanciest HoJo in the world.
↓ Quote | Posted September 1, 2006, 10:26 pm