So I'm heading to China in May for a 16 day trip with some travel company with my parents (I'm surprised they still let me tag along!), it is one of those itinerary for the whole trip jobs with plenty of tourist gimmicky in the travel guides stuff. I am however a big fan of taking in the real way of life in a distant land, and with my ever growing love for tea, I feel that one day I want to even live in China for a year or so and grasp the culture and language etc...
However, as I am only there for 13 days really (with 3 days worth of travel, sneaky company calling it a 16 day trip
) and 3 of those days is a yangtze river cruise which looks horrendously boring, I will not have much time to just roam the streets in search of local tea vendors or tea houses or markets etc... So I was wondering if people could give me any advice with regard to the following regions, more specifically tea related, but all advice on soaking in some real life Chinese culture will be greatly appreciated! I do know that all of these places are northernish and so, the relationship with tea is probably not as strong as the southern parts of the country (as is my understanding), so perhaps there isn't any tea related culture to advise me on!
Places:
*Shanghai
*Suzhou
*Yangtze cruise (taking in some gorges over 3 days ....)
*Chengdu
*Xian
*Beijing
From what I can tell, there is absolutely nothing tea related in the itinerary which in my opinion, for a tour of CHINA is a total sin! When you think of China, you think of tea, surely a local tea tasting should be in there, but I digress.
Anyways, any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
P.s. I will most definitely report back after the trip!
)