Tien Chiu

  • Home
  • About
    • Honors, Awards, and Publications
  • Online Teaching
  • Gallery
  • Essays
  • Book
  • Blog
  • Dye samples
You are here: Home / Travels / China

China

In September 2007 I went to China on a Silk Road Tour with Grand American Travel, along with Mike, my mom, her husband, my brother and his wife.

For more details of my adventures in China, read my China travel blog!

Urumqi
Urumqi

Urumqi, located in the far northwestern corner of China, is China's largest province (I think) and consists mostly of desert with two mountain ranges and a green basin in between the mountain ranges. It is renowned for its grapes, raisins, and melons - said to be the sweetest in China, if not the world.

19 Photos

Dunhuang
Dunhuang

Dunhuang, a small city in the Gansu province of China, is located about 300 miles southeast of Urumqi, and is known primarily for its sand dunes (one of the biggest "drifting sands" deserts in China) and for the Mogao caves.

20 Photos

Great Wall
Great Wall

Jiayuguan, the final fortress on the Great Wall, was built in 1372 by the Ming Dynasty and is over 3000 miles from the eastern outpost of the wall (!). Surely this qualifies as one of the ancient wonders of the world!

8 Photos

Lanzhou
Lanzhou

<p>Lanzhou, the provincial capital of Gansu Province, is a rather grimly industrial city in the northwest of China. Smog hangs thick in the air (not helped by the nearby mountains, which help pile the smog up onto the city). From a tourist perspective, the most interesting thing about the city is the Bingling Si Caves, another set of sandstone-carving caves not unlike the Mogao caves, but on a far smaller scale.

12 Photos

Xining
Xining

<p>Xining is the capital of Qinghai province, perhaps best-known for the Kumbum Tibetan monastery nearby. It's the birthplace of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism (there are two sects, Red Hat and Yellow Hat), and was the former home of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, before China invaded Tibet.</p> <p> We stopped by the local park for a climb, then the Grand Mosque, where we spoke to a very friendly Chinese Muslim priest, then to the Kumbum monastery. On the way back, I got a photo with a yak! They are way cute.</p>

12 Photos

Xi'an
Xi'an

Xi'an was the ancient capital of China until the Mongols moved the capital to Beijing, where it resides today. It has a very well-preserved city wall (we walked around a good portion of it), and nearby is Hua Shan (Flower Mountain).

18 Photos

Crafts in Xi'an
Crafts in Xi'an

Hua Shan (Flower Mountain) in Xi'an is also an area known for its dumplings - we went to one of the most famous dumpling restaurants and were treated to a real feast. We also stopped by a lacquer store, where my mom bought me a gorgeous jade carving (see gallery).

15 Photos

Share this post!

  • Tweet
  • More
  • Email
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Print

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Information resources

  • Dye samples
    • Procion MX fiber-reactive dye samples on cotton
    • How to "read" the dye sample sets
    • Dye sample strategy - the "Cube" method
  • How-Tos
    • Dyeing and surface design
    • Weaving
    • Designing handwoven cloth
    • Sewing

Blog posts

  • All blog posts
    • food
      • chocolate
    • musings
    • textiles
      • dyeing
      • knitting
      • sewing
      • surface design
      • weaving
    • writing

Archives

Photos from my travels

  • Dye samples
    • Procion MX fiber-reactive dye samples on cotton
    • How to "read" the dye sample sets
    • Dye sample strategy - the "Cube" method
  • Travels
    • Thailand
    • Cambodia
    • Vietnam
    • Laos
    • India
    • Ghana
    • China

Travel Blog

Entertaining miscellanies

© Copyright 2016 Tien Chiu · All Rights Reserved ·