A short but intense trip

The main purpose of this trip being the eclipse, we focused on travel packages dedicated to the event as those proposed by Eclipse-City. Several packs offered travel too much oriented for adventurers in my opinion even if my father would have prefered to walk in the mountains and sleep outdoors.

The choice was made to subscribe to an option combining attending to the eclipse event and touristic visits in a 3-day trip. Staying only 3 days in China could be considered as a shame according to the travel distance, but our story will show you we have seen a lot of beautiful places and endeavoured chinese culture and architecture within this short period of time.

The flight

The start of our trip was in Frankfurt am Main on July the 29th where my father and I got to by train. The flight on AirChina lasts 10 hours in direction to China and 11 hours return. The flight to go is less tiresome than the return one since we could get up in the morning time at the arrival (chinese time) which compensated a little the jet lag.

Stop-over in Shanghai

We stopped one day in Shanghai having just enough time to walk in the streets of the area near The Bund. Lot of people are walking in the streets but not many tourists, and we couln't find either shops, or restaurants as we would have expected. Finally, we met a huge concentration of admirative tourists on the embankment, all looking to the spectacle on the other side of Huangpu river.

The weather was not really good but it seems to be common in the city. We only had to wipe off little drops as it is the case when rain starts, but strangely here, it has been dripping like this for more than 3 hours. The financial quarter of Pudong is impressive mainly because of the height of part of the highest skyscrapers in the world.

Fortunately, by sun set, the floodlighting on the buildings are wonderful nevertheless, whether it be due to the huge number of lights or to the great animations on entire building front.

Transfer to Jiayuguan

The meeting point for all attendees was in the airport the next morning (July 31st). Some of the eclipse chaser, well-armed, carry heavy suitcases enclosing telescopes, tripod with star trackers and objectives. We don't have the same objectives (both meaning) as they have, but are ready to go !

The flight on Shanghai Airline is 5 hours long including one stop-over in Xi'an Xianyang airport which was also an opportunity to rush to the toilets. The right reason for this stop being a quick exchange of passengers on inner flights in less than 20 minutes thanks to a perfect organization.
The final destination is Jiayuguan in Gansu province. It is a city built in the middle of the desert on a place having rich underground ressources such as iron.

Before landing in Jiayuguan, we flew over a straight part of the wall in the desert and could imagine how long is the Great Wall of China.

The welcome drink on the arrival is the good occasion to better understand the planning for the 2 high paced days coming next. We could also learn a bit of local tradition : Hot orange juice !

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