Dr. Mark Nan Tu

BaDaChu Park entrance

Praying

The name Badachu means Eight Great Sites, and refers to the eight Buddhist temples at the foot of Beijing’s Western Hills Scenic Area. Located along the outskirts of Beijing, it was restored during the 1980’s and has since become a famous tourist destination.

There are a total of eight former Buddhist temples and monasteries in Badachu Park. These are the Temple of Eternal Peace, the Temple of Divine Light, Three-hill Nunnery, the Temple of Great Mercy, Dragon Spring Nunnery, the Temple of Fragrant World, The Cave of Precious Pearl, and Zhengguo Temple.

Badachu Park is an attractive place to visit all year round. Visitors can stroll from one temple to another, enjoying the beautiful scenery and admiring the arbor and rare ancient trees. In September and October, when the leaves are turning red, crowds of tourists come to climb the mountains.

Badachu is also an excellent place for hiking. The hike is moderate and the steps are well maintained. It takes about 1.5 hour to walk from the foot of the mountain to the top including the time visiting the temples.

Badachu is also connected to the Fragrance Hill through a fire road at the middle of the mountain. A hike can start from the entrance to the BadaChu and follow the fire road all the way to Fragrance Hill and down to the foot. This hike is about 15km and goes through some of the best red leaves viewing area in Beijing. A good 3 hour walk is required to complete this journey. One can take a connecting bus from the Fragrance Hill to the BadaChu parking lot.

Entrance Fee:

Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum is one of the biggest imperial tombs in China. It lies in the eastern suburbs of Nanjing City at the southern foot of Zhongshan (Purple) Mountain. Emperor Chengzu, Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and Queen Ma were buried there.
13 out of 16 emperor were buried in the Ming tombs around Beijing
The mausoleum has two discreet sections: One is the Sacred Way area and the other is the main body of the mausoleum itself.

The main gate

The 392 steps leads up to the tomb

The Dr Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum was built in 1926 in honor of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), who is recognized as the Father of Modern China.

Two friends and I took a Chinese Hummer SUV for a 7 days; 2500 km drive through Hunan and Hubei province during the Spring festival holiday. We went though national highway, local express way, mud, dirt, snow,

The Mao status at the foot of the YueLu mountain

Aiwan Pavilion in winter

Yuelu mountain is located on the river bank of the Xiang river in Shanghai, the capital of Hunan
Mount Yuelu Scenic Area consists of hills, pinnacles, rivers, lakes, wide variety of species of flora and fauna, cultural historic site, revolutionary monuments. A visit to Changsha is not complete without climbing the Yuelu mountain.

Besides the beautiful natural sceneries, The mountain is dotted with inspiring cultural heritages including the Yuelu Academy, Lushan Temple, Yunlu Palace, Aiwan Pavilion, Baihe Spring, the Monument to Huang Xing and Cha Er. Monument to King Jiu and other minor historical traces.

Aiwan Pavilion
This pavilion was built during the reign of Emperor Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty and was made famous from the poem by Du Mu, a poet from the Song dynasty, which says ” Stop my carriage, for I love the maple forest in the deep autumn; the leaves in the frost are redder than the flowers in February.
The Pavilion is made even more famous because the Chinese leader Mao zhedong spend his spare time with fellow students when he was studying in Changsha normal collage in the early 20th century.

Lushan Temple
Lushan Temple in located in the middle section of the mountain and is one of the most ancient temples in Hunan built in Western Jin Dynasty. Today, it is a rather small temple but due to its location, it is still popular among those devoted followers.

Monument to Cha Er and Huang Xing
Both are national hero in the movement overthrown the imperial system.

Residence of King Jiu, the founding father of south Korea
This monument is located in the middle section of the mountain. One will easily miss it if not for its Korean writings. It is the hide out for King Jiu, the founding father of the modern south Korea. Mr. King Jiu stayed in Changsha Yuelu mountain during the Japanese occupation in Korea in the 1940s.

Yuelu Academy
Yuelu Academy was like the Harvard or Cambridge in the west or Beijing University in China. Yuelu Academy was the top Intellectual training ground for thousands of years until the early 20th century.

A leisure hike up the Yuelu Mountain takes about 1 hour. There is a viewing platform at the top of the mountain. From there, one can see the Xiang River passing through and the Juzizhou Island in the middle of the river and the Changsha city skyline at the distance. Mao zhedong once wrote in his poem: The Xiang river flow north and with the Juzizhou island in the middle. The trees levels are turning red and thousands of the boats are traveling in the Xiang river.

Yuelu Academy

One of the teaching room in the Yuelu Academy

The entrance to the Lushan Temple

Monument to HuangXing

From the top of the mountain, Xiang river and the JuZiZhou island and the Changsha city on the other side of the Xiang river

Heibei Toll Booth at the Jinzhu Expressway

I and two friends went for a 7 days tour to Hunan and Hubei during the Spring Festival holidays. We drove a Yongsi (Warriors) military Jeep produced by the Beijing Jeep factory. Two friends are from Shenzhen. Since the Yongsi Jeep is produced in Beijing and is only sold through dealers in Beijing, they preordered it from a Beijing dealer and flew to Beijing on February 3 afternoon to pickup the vehicle.

Nanyang, Henan Province to Shiyan, Hubei Province

Northen China plains

The detour to the back of the Wudang Mountain

We had a light breakfast at the hotel and checked out. We were heading for Shiyan City, Hubei Province. From there, we planned to visit the Wudang Mountain.
As none of us was familiar with Hubei, we brought a GPS unit. But, we quickly found that the direction given by GPS was incorrect. In a junction, we headed for a small road where all the locals told us to use a different road. The road pointed out by GPS was indeed the shortest road to Wudang Mountain. However, the road did not lead to the entrance but to the back mountain where we had to climb over a high mountain ridge over to Wudang.
The small road was badly maintained and the snow storm a month ago left the surface to be mud and ice. Our Yongsi Jeep performed very well. The mud tires gripped the surface and provided us with a skip free ride. The lower gear gave us a solid thrust which allowed us to get out many mud pits on the road.
It turned out that that scenery was extremely beautiful. Since there was hardly any vehicle travelled on this road, the ride was very enjoyable. We got out of the vehicle and took many pictures.
We turned back at about 15km and continued towards the Wudang Mountain. We arrived at the food of the Wudang Mountain at about 3pm. We had a very late lunch at one of the few restaurants that were still open. We got to the entrance at about 4:30pm. The staff suggested that we came back tomorrow as it was already getting dark.
We turned back and headed for Shiyan County. We booked a hotel close to the downtown area. Shiyan is the manufacturing base for the China Second Vehicle Manufacturing Company.
We checked in the hotel and off loaded our bags. We then set out to find dinner. Since it is the eve of the Chinese Spring Festival, we found that most of the restaurants were closed. We were very lucky and found a hotpot place in a narrow street near by our hotel.
The restaurant owner was a retired engineer from the China Second Vehicle Manufacturing Company. He had his three daughters visiting him during the Spring Festival. He was kindly enough to serve us hotpot dishes even there was no other customers in the restaurant.�
We bought some liquor in a store nearby. This is the Spring Festival�s Eve. We went back to our hotel room and watched TV. We drank the wine and send blessing text messages to friends and family members around China.

When it turned 12 at midnight, the whole city erupted into a giant firework shows. The noise of the firecrackers was defying.�
After the firecrackers celebration, we went to sleep. We had to get ready for hike the Wudang Mountain tomorrow.
Distance: Nanyang – Shiyan 265km.
Time: 8 hours including a detour, breaks and lunch

The small village at the foot of the Wudang Mountain (back mountain)

The local farming

Locals

Located in Miyun county, Beijing, about 80Km from downtown. Beijing Nanshan Ski Village, has most assorting trail, 3000 pairs skiing equipment for rental, and 150 of them are popular snow-board. with 1318 meters of Toboggan Runs, crossing 9 highs, one bridge, and 5 jumping segment. host 100 sledges from Cananda, skiing school with 40 excellent instructors, and some from Austria.

Skiing resort boasts of 8 trails for beginners, intermediate and advanced skiers, and the first Halfpipe of international standard as well as the China first Mogul’s advanced trail, and the first snow football ground for six players.

Near by the Rimbaud Pond, there are the most romantic residence in the ski resort—Shirton Villas, which has 24 double rooms all equipped with fireplace. Another bright point is Nanshan Skiing Club

I recently wrote an email to my Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) friends about my experience of traveling in China.

Hello All:

Did Jim Rogers actually say that now is not a good time to travel in China? Wow, I can not believe that he said that. Jim Rogers is wrong about the traveling in China. He is definitely right about the investing in China. The Shanghai composite index raised nearly 100% last year. The real estate price raised about 80% in Beijing (in other words, the return on out of pocket investment in real estate in Beijing with 30% downpayment should be like 150% or more).

I personally traveled to all corners in China, North to HelongJiang, East to Shanghai, West to XingJiang and Tibet, South the Yunnan and Hainan. I also traveled extensively in Europe and North America. In my point of view, I say that China is one of the best (if not the best) tourist place in the world.

Compared with North America, China offers similar landscape but richer history. Compared with Europe, China offers similar history but richer landscapes. What’s more important, traveling in China is so cheap that I even at the local Chinese pay, I do not look at the price tag. Nothing is expensive. How about a soft sleeper from Beijing to GuangZhou for less than $100USD. How about a lavish dinner in LiJiang, Yunnan for less than $20 USD. I recently went to XiaChuan Island (a small island 35 min by speed boat from TaiShan Guangzhou). I had the whole hotel (5 floors) for myself. The beach front room cost me less than $12USD. A seafood dinner cooked on the spot cost me $12USD. The Karaoke girls were asking for $24USD overnight. The island is a smaller version of Hawaii (where I visited twice in the 90s, so I know). I walked on the 2km beach that has only about 10 people and most of them are local fishermen. I call it: the most romantic beach in China.

Cost of living in big cities such as Beijing is rising. But not nearly as high as in the Valleys. The trick is NOT to live like LaoWai (foreigner), but to live like Chinese. If the rooms are paid off, the cost of living can be as low as $250USD/month and the quality of live is as good as a white collared person in the Valleys

I took a guided tour to Northern China last summer. The scene reminded me of my days in Minnesota with the Pine trees and dark soil. My 7 day guided trip including the guide, transportation, lodging, entrance tickets, etc cost around $250USD. It is cheaper than most of the people staying in Beijing for a week. In other words, traveling around China in such tours would be better option for retired folks than ask them to stay in Beijing, cost wise.

I respect Jim Rogers. In fact, he is my hero. I read two of his three books. Investment Biker and Adventure Capitalist. However, I totally disagree with him that now is not a good time traveling in China. The real difference between his traveling and mine traveling is that he traveled in China in a custom-made Mercedes Benz and staying mostly in 5 star hotels. I traveled in China with a back pack, using various transportation means and staying in all local hotels. I can say that I enjoyed just as much if not more than he did. I for sure have seen more of the real China than he did.

There is an old Chinese saying: In a local town, behave like a local. So in China, behave like a Chinese. You will enjoy more.

Best Regards
Mark Tu