Miscellaneous Lesser-Known City Info

[Raoul Duke]

This thread is for the 4th, 5th....Nth tier cities that don't really have enough happening to rate a thread. Might also go for cities like Lhasa that some of us have seen briefly but none have lived in or visited at length.

[Raoul Duke]

Kunshan, Jiangsu
Part of Greater Suzhou City. Not a bad place, but pretty small. Lots of industry, including a few smokestack industries (big chemical plant in the middle of town) little seen in Suzhou proper.

Still, the town seems reasonably clean and liveable, especially considering that we're in China. Great economy. The town is heavily infested by Taiwanese- this seems to have become their enclave while others moved on to Suzhou.

Maybe the best thing about Kunshan is that it is about equidistant to Shanghai and Suzhou, and not far from either. It's well served by trains and buses. Relief is not far away.

[Jollyjunklass]

I guess a lot better than bumb m'kay Idaho Huaian then. Better than Hangzhou?

[Raoul Duke]

Depends on what you mean by better.

Huaian will be the cheapest of the three. Hard to say which is more expensive but I will guess Hangzhou...HZ is an awfully popular place.

Huaian will be the least modern and the most isolated. A two-edged sword.

Any of the three will be tolerable. Given a choice of the three...probably Hangzhou with Kunshan (by virtue of its proximity to Shanghai) a very, VERY close second.

[Jollyjunklass]

Yes Raoul,

It claims the campus is a half an hour bus trip to downtown Shanghai City. it reads as follows,

"Neighboring the national industrial development areas of Suzhou and Kunshan,... and thus has built up Silicon Lake Hi-tech Industrial Park on the campus."

Sound like a pretty cool location. But Rauol, is it grey there a lot, as in gray days? Lack of sunshine, can sometimes depress me. I have heard this about Chengdu.

The school itself looks rather industrial. It used to be called Silicon University, but, fell under private ownership.

[Jollyjunklass]

BTW Rauol,

I just read that it has been taken over by the Taiwanese, is there any difference here in the industry I mean, with practices and such?

[Lotus Eater]

Lhasa is beautiful - especially if you like the cold. The Potala Palace is something else again, and the Summer Palace is Ok. Getting out into the country is the real buzz in Tibet. The small villages are great - the roads are horrendous at any time, but worth the MAJOR effort. I have pushed 4X4 out of bogs at 4,700 m. Qomalangma is beyond awesome. GO GO GO!

The monastries - all over the place are lovely, and if you are open and friendly will be happy for you to visit. The smaller schools love gifts of pens, pencils and the ilk.

If I were to move from Xi'an I would head to Tibet, Inner Mongolia or Xinjiang. I love wild places.

[con's fly is open]

Yingkou appears on most maps, and includes three or four other town/cities. Is this enough for its own thread? It should be pointed out that it comprises only the 4th largest burg in Liaoning, after Shenyang, Dalian and Anshan...
Plus I guess Dashiqiao is covered in my own threads. Nevertheless, there's a fair amount (I suppose) going on collectively- over 2 million souls in all. Plus, Liaoning, being a major artery to the Bohai sea, Korea and Russia plus points beyond, is a bigger deal than the average province.

Your gut on this, Rrrraaaoooul! (no "trilling my R" smilie)

[Raoul Duke]

Up to you...both of these towns rarely pop up on the radar but it would be nice to know more about both. Whether they are separate threads or entries here depends on how much you want to write about them. I'd like to see all the Dashiqiao tidbits collected together here somewhere.

Liaoning has definitely gotten some benefit from its proximity to the sea. The port of Dalian being bery, bery good to Liaoning.

[George61]

Well, Babe has hit Zhuhai......and I have had a preliminary assessment. Sounds great! I will get her to write a full report when she comes back....with pics!!

[Lager]

I'll add one here as enjoy the AC here in soft class.

HUZHOU Zhejiang (my last city) This is sort of a poor mans Suzhou...A pretty place with canals running through it---but a very small town.

Good location-Shanghai is 2.5 hours away HZ one hour.

Small enough to walk almost anywhere. A supermarket has begun stocking Western stuff-even NZ cheese---DVD selection as good as anywhere---cost of living very low...Was a "bicycle" friendly place if you enjoy that.

Touristy stuff pretty standard--a lake a temple the usual..There are a couple of better places nearby for sites---small camal towns mostly...

CAN certainly get boring. No real nightlife to speak of and really only a handful of foreigners

[gengrant]

I can add one: Huizhou, Guangdong. This place has it all! Shopping, Restaurants, Bars, Bowling & Golf, Home to Carlsberg Beer in China. Built around West Lake, the city has beautiful walkways around the lake and lots to do. Transportation is fair, with taxi meter drops at 5 yuan Bus station & train station to just about anywhere. about 2 hours from Hong Kong to the Southwest. Day trips to Guangzhou and Shenzhen are easy...as are trips to the South China Sea. Luofo Mountain is a great place to visit, with a mountainside monastary that has a giftshop the size of Texas (cause we FT love to hit giftshops!). Lots of teaching jobs available here...Huizhou University, Public Schools, Private Language; if you can imagine it, they probably have it. Wages are comparable to other parts of China. Crime is VERY low, only a couple traffic lights, so I wouldn't recommend owning a bike here. I'd live there again in a heartbeat!

[Da Dan]

Jishou, Hunan...

This is a smaller city in northwest Hunan, one train stop from JangJiaJe (sp? famous national park) or a 5 hour drive from there, it is the nearest airport.
Jishou is a 24-hour train ride to either Shanghai or Beijing.

I lived in a really small town that is 3-hour bus ride into the mountains from Jishou so this is a general short write up of the area.
Jishou University often posts around the net looking for teachers.

I really enjoyed this area & will happily recommend going there!
It is the real China & has the small town atmosphere & friendliness.
If you¡¯re into big city life, maybe you should only visit for a few days of R&R, if you want to get to know & see how normal people live in China, this is a good place for living a term or two. Pay won¡¯t be high as it is a poor region but that also means the cost of living is quite low too so you can save easily.

The people are very friendly & curious about foreigners, it is not uncommon to be the First one they ever saw in person so expect people to look at you. It is a poor area so many are not well educated in ways of the book, Many are educated in the old fashened ways in what they need to know to survive in their part of the world though & happy to share anything they have with Special guests.
The ¡°Hellos¡± are rarely meant in bad ways, often it the only word they know & you see in there smiles that most are just trying to be nice.
Go to some of the small villages in the nearby mountains & you Will end up eating & staying in peoples homes. A lot of wooden homes built without a single nail, I loved looking at how they constructed things the old way.

A lot of local crafts there too, they use the lunar month system with the markets, the vilage people come to the bigger towns on certain days with their goods so finding really cool things in the markets is easy once you learn which days are for which kinds of goods.

Food is HOT! ALL of it!!!
For me, that is a good thing but if you¡¯re not a chili pepper eater, ya might end up losing some weight in these parts. They use the bigger peppers, not the little red ones, the long ones that turn red & a little sweeter & less hot in time, that just means they put more into the dishes. I liked the flavor of these peppers more & they add great color to the dishes... ALL of the dishes
Also being a smaller city with many village peoples, they eat Everything, nothing is wasted.

The area is pretty mountainous, big mountains with of them having large rocky cliffs, a lot of the rock pinnacles here & there & it stayed green all year.
I thought is it a beautiful area. Many places that you can visit for great day trips, rivers, valleys, hiking, villages that never saw a white face in person...

Winters get cold but not like in the north, `maybe 10 days of snow.... `maybe none...
Summers can be Hot & Humid!

Anyways.... I don¡¯t know what to say.
If anyone wants info on this area, Please feel free to ask, I can answers questions better than thinking of things off the top of my head.