I have to admit that despite being a Chinese-Thai, I have tried to avoid China for all along, and that China in my imagination was quite intimidating, with all the language barriers, the congested population, the pollution and the manners…
But finally it was time that I have to go to China for work. My first Chinese experience was not in main cities like Shanghai or Beijing, but in a city called Zhengzhou. So I was guaranteed that I got the authentic Chinese experiences enough, and it turned out that the real China is not as intimidating as I thought. It is cleaner than I thought (well, except for some toilets) and not hectic as I thought because everything is soooo big. Still, in some tourist spots it was still crowded but it was ok..
From Zhengzhou which is a cosmopolitan city (it is the capital of Henan province), we did daily excursions to cover some cultural highlights around the city, all of which are interesting enough. The place we visited include the Kaifeng city, Shaolin temple, Luoyang city, and Yun Tai Shan mountains. The area is actually the cradle of the Chinese civilizations for quite some time (like 6 dynasties were founded here), so for history and culture geeks, you will surely have a great time here. And it’s not far from Xian as well.
