3(myself, my husband and my brother-in-law Dennis) 0f us originally joined a tour group organized by a college friend - 14 days to visit shanghai,Hangzhou,Huangshan,Nanjing,Chengdu,Jiuzhaigou,Zhangjiajie and Guangzhou.
Around Sept.5th we decided to back out because the travel agent the group worked with was on a
local Chinese newspaper's travel section - a half page article filed by a family of 11 just
came back from a group tour plus a few days add-on side trip to visit their home village. They were not too happy about the hotels,the broken van and other things.
Dennis told me that he is 71 and he would like to make the China trip this year.
So I decided to do it on our own. We were able to convince my sister to join because of slower pace and nicer hotels. We(age 58,65,66,71) spent 19 days to visit Chengdu(1 night),Jiuzhaigou(3),Xian(2),Hangzhou(3), Huangshan(3),Shanghai(3),Suzhou(2),Nanjing(2). After China we stayed in Hong Kong for a week to visit relatives and friends. The purpose of this trip was to tour Jiuzhaigou and Huangshan. Dennis preferred not to start the day too early. There were no specific budget limitation and we all preferred nicer hotels.
Since I did my own booking thru web sites, I knew airline tickets/hotels/car pickups would cost more than regular tours. I planned the trip by reading tripadvisor.com, ctrip.com and slowtrav.com(about shanghai).
I have tour guides(including transportation) for Chengdu, Xian and Huangshan. I asked for nonsmoking van and absolutely no shopping. I forgot to mention about seat belts. The van from Hangzhou->Huangshan didn't have seat belts. After we arrived in our Huangshan hotel(at the foot of Huangshan), we told our guide our concern. She took care of it right away and got a newer van to pick us up for dinner and afterwards everything was perfect.
I got our Chengdu tour guide and xian tour guide from tripadvisor.com's China forum. The Huangshan
tour guide was recommended by Dennis' brother. He just came back from a Ritz tour
(a well known and very good tour company) with his family(2 adults and 2 teenagers) and had arranged a side trip for Huangshan thru Ritz. I contacted the Huangshan tour guide Alice zhang directly. All of us were happy with our tour guides. They all spoke English well because Dennis doesn't speak/understand mandarin.

10/14 Flew from sfo->hkg.

10/15 Stayed overnight in Novotel citygate hotel in hkg airport area, it was newer than the other airport hotel. Hotel shuttle was free.

10/16 Flew from hkg->Chendgu, arrived around 1pm. We had breakfast at the hotel and Dragon Air served lunch.
Tour guide Mickal with a van and driver picked us up at the airport, took us to visit Panda park -a very nice, well planned panda research park. We were lucky to see the pandas were so active and playful in the afternoon - they teased and fought with each other;they also knew how to pose for good pictures. We had a wonderful 2 hours there. Mickal was very nice and polite. The driver was familiar with Chengdu streets and knew how to avoid traffic. We stayed at Sofitel Wanda and had a very good dinner in the hotel's Chinese restaurant.

10/17 Flew from Chengdu->Jiuzhaigou,Jiuzhaigou Sheraton van picked us up at the airport. The air was a bit thin due to high altitude(11,155feet). The driver was nice and drove slow thru the winding road and it took more than 2 hours to get to the hotel(altitude 6,000feet). We all felt fine. It was the peak season for touring Jiuzhaigou, so the hotel rate was high(2600cyn). I made sure we got the rooms in the main building -people said it is nicer! We had dinner in the Chinese restaurant - fresh mushroom soup, steam live fish, noodle,rice and Chinese greens. We attended the 7:30pm evening show next to the Sheraton main building. We got 1st row
middle seats. Dennis was very happy because it was easier to take good pictures.

10/18 I took a taxi(5cyn) to the park entrance around 8:30am to purchase tickets. The line was not
long at all- 5 people in front of me. Most of the visitors were with groups. Breakfast at the hotel was great - Chinese and Western food. We left the hotel around 10:00am and brought our lunch - granola bars and nuts. We entered the gate at the line for picture taking because we wanted to return the next day.
After entering, we went to the left side to wait for bus. It was crowded and people didn't follow rules. The waiting line was gone once the bus arrived - everyone just pushed! It was pretty bad! Across the road, there were large groups waiting for their own group buses. We took the bus and got off at "fire sparkle lake" stop, visited oilong lake, shuzheng lake, shuzheng fall, tiger lake and rhinoceros lake. We had a wonderful walk, light shower on and off, not crowded at all! It was so pretty. The leaves were changing color. The reflections were clear. The water was so clean with different color. It is hard to describe it. You have to be there to enjoy it. We walked about 5/6 hours. The scenery was tranquil. After we got back to Sheraton, we rested in our room. My sister and Dennis had their coffee at the lobby cafe. We had dinner in the Chinese restaurant again and it was very good. After dinner, we walked around a bit. They went to get their foot massage- they said it was ok but not great.

10/19 around 10:00am, we purchased the park bus tickets at the ticket office. We entered the park using the previous day's tickets(kept all prior day tickets together to show at the entrance). We went thru the bus line and rode to the right side of the fork - Prenival Forest direction. We got off at Panda Lake. It was crowded. All the group tour people were in this area. We brought our granola bars with us. We walked down to Five-flower lake, Peacock river, Pearl Shoal Fall, mirror lake, then to Nuorilang fall. The scenery was outstanding again except too many people. Yesterday was more relax and calm. But the Pearl Shoal Fall was very nice and worth the walk. Around 3pm, We decided to take the bus to Long Lake. We were a bit tired and the bus ride was a bit long. May be the altitude was a bit too much for us. There were snow on the mountain top,but there were not much to see at Long lake. May be it was not the right time to visit this area. We didn't feel like walking to Multi-Color Lake, so took the bus back down from Long lake. We had to xfer bus at Multi-color lake and my sister fell while people pushing her. It was bad! I am glad that my sister didn't get hurt. The weather was nice and we had another good day.

10/20 The flight to Xian was delayed for 2 hours. We started our day late and had breakfast until 10am. We had a different driver with a SUV for going back to the airport. The driver drove fast and it only took hour and half to get to the airport. My husband got car sick and wanted to vomit. He rested in a massage chair(20cyn for 15mins shaking) in the airport waiting area. I went to the emergency room to buy some "chinese oilment" for him to rub his head. He still didn't feel good. I saw the massage chair lady selling oxygen tank and I got one for him to sniff. He felt a lot better after he finished the tank(20cyn). I guess he had high altitude problem and car sick. I was glad it was not a prolonged problem! We got to Xian late.
We arrived at Hyatt Regency Hotel around 5:30pm. Our tour guide Aaron(Mr. Liu Yu) picked us up with a van and took us to the Xian Hyatt. We had noodles in the hotel then went to see a dance show(highly recommended by the tour guide). It was a big mistake. The show was terrible. The Chinese dance was bad! We didn't like it at all and I did tell Aaron. The dance show came with dumpling dinner. We didn't eat there.
PLEASE DON'T GO if you know how Chinese dances were supposed to look like!!!

10/21 We had breakfast on the club lounge level and it was very good - Chinese and Western food. We visited the Terra Cotta museum, Da Ci'en temple, City wall, Bell towel, Big Wild Goose Pagoda and Moslem street. We bought a bag of roasted chestnut and they were good in Moslem street. Aaron gave good explanations and he was very personable. He took us to a local restaurant for lunch. We visited the city sites in the afternoon. The afternoon/evening snacks in the hotel club lounge were really good. It was worth to pay a bit more for the club level room and the service was excellent too. We had buffet dinner at the hotel - it was very good!
My sister and Dennis went for their massages and loved it.

10/22 we flew from Xian to Hangzhou and stayed at Hangzhou Hyatt. We had a club room with lake view. It was very nice. We had a nice snack at the club lounge. We rested, then walked to Hefang Old Street. We walked from the hotel to Nanshan road, then Hefand Street. There were a lot of eating/snack stalls. We didn't dare to try them. They looked so good but not sure if it was clean enough. It was more interesting once we arrived at the Old street. We bought local candies(nuts inside). We had noodles at 85 Hefang Street(www.hzzyg.com)- beef noodles and river shrimp noodles. They were really good! I saw tourists brought their own chopsticks.
We forgot ours in the hotel room.

10/23 we left the hotel around 10:30 because Dennis went out to get the sim card for his cellphone. We took a boat ride - 10 minutes walking from hotel. It was run by Hangzhou Westlake Pleasure Boat Co. The boat ride went to Mid lake Pavillion and 3 pools mirrioring the moon. The sky was grey, the scenery was nice but not great. We got off at Flower Harbor Park area. We tried to look for a restaurant(too bad, I forgot to get the business card.) and had problem. Finally, we took a taxi and it was near the carp viewing area. The name of the restaurant was 'Zee Wai (知 味 館)', I think! - we had spring roll, xilong boa, noddle soup, small bak choy....They were
all good. After lunch, we walked to the carp pond area, then walked to the lake front road to catch the tour bus run by Hangzhou around the lake tourist company. We rode the bus back to the hotel. We rested, then took a taxi to the Hefang old street. My sister bought 3 small stones for the artist to carve her grandchildren's names. Then we had noodles for dinner.

10/24 our Huangshan tour started from a van pickup at our Hangzhou Hyatt at 10:00am.
We bought some snacks(bread/rolls/pastry) from the hotel bakery to be enjoyed on the road. We got to 'Tangyue Memorial' after 3 hours(there was 1 bathroom break) of driving. 'Tangyue Memorial Archway Group' composed of 7 arches. It arrayed in the successive order of loyalty, filial piety, women's chastity and charity. There were a local guide explanaing each archway's story. Afterwards we visited a nice bonsai garden. Another hour of drive, we arrived in Huangshan Golf hotel(originally we supposed to stay in the Huangshan international hotel, but Alice thought we might not be happy. So We added 100rmb for staying in the Golf hotel). After 1 hour rest,we had dinner at the best restaurant on the ancient street of Tunxi. The dinner was tasty and good. We enjoyed walking the ancient street after dinner. I think it Was better than the ancient street in Hangzhou. We had tea tasting and bought 6 cans of tea.

10/25 we started our day around 8:30am. We visited Hongcun(it was worth the detour). It rained on our way to the Huangshan cable car station. When we got to the Huangshan cable car station, the rain stopped. At the top, We walked from the cable car station to the Beihai hotel. We paid around 70rmb for a porter to carry 3 bags from cable car station(top of mt.) to Beihai hotel. We only saw 'cloud sea' for 2 minutes, had lunch and rested a bit and walked around with Alice to view the beautiful rocks, trees and scenery of the back mountain.
We had dinner around 7pm and it was not very good. My sister and Dennis went for their massage. We went to bed early because need to get up at 4:15am for the sunrise viewing.

10/26 4:40am, Alice met my husband and Dennis at the hotel lobby and took them up to a prime spot
for viewing sunrise. The sun came out around 6:15am and they were lucky and enjoyed the sunrise very much! After breakfast, we rested for 2 hours and Alice took us on a walking tour. We took the new sightseeing cable car, then 2 hours of walking to visit Emerald Pool and Old Dragon Pool. We had lunch at Xihai hotel, then back to Beihai hotel around 3pm. The rest of the day was free time. Dinner was not that good. We should have ordered some other dish.

10/27 we left Huangshan around 9:30am and the van took us back to Tunxi. We visited 2 shops because Alice knew my husband was interested in painting and craft. The 2 shops - bamboo carving and ink stones. Since we didn't eat very well on the top of the mountain, we decided to have a light lunch at the best restaurant on the ancient street. This time was the 'Dim Sum' area and the food was wonderful. It was 68rmb for 6 of us(Alice, Mr. Wang the driver and us). We arrived at our Hangzhou hotel around 5pm. We stayed at Hangzhou State guest House. We had a wonderful stay, nice afternoon tea/coffee. The dinner was wonderful with the seasonal crab, famous pan fry river shrimp, fresh cloud ear fungus, Chinese green, rice, noddle and soup.

It was a wonderful Huangshan trip. Alice was a very caring(we are 58,65,66 and 71 years old) person. She changed my sister's room to a brighter/nicer room in Beihei Hotel on the 2nd night. She took good care of my brother-in-law during the sunrise viewing trip. She always tried to save money for us - at the tea shop, she didn't want us to purchase the expensive tea. She purchased the 2 Huangshan dvds for us with a better price. We had a very good driver Mr. Wang too.
The only point I need to mention was the original van(picked up at Hangzhou) didn't have seat belts and the van was a bit old and small. After we arrived at the Huangshan Golf hotel, my husband told Alice about our concerns and she immediately took care of the problem and had a newer van with seat belts to pick us up for dinner.
She was wonderful! She planned our trip according to our needs/requests thru emails.

10/28 breakfast in Xihu State Guest House was the best we had. The location of the hotel was excellent. The hotel ground was beautiful. We took a walk in the morning, the sunrise was beautiful too. We should have stayed there for one more night. We visited Xitang on our way to Shanghai. We didn't like Xitang because it was a long walk into the village and the place was not very interesting. We left after 45 minutes. We arrived at Radisson Hotel Shanghai New World around 5pm. We checked in and went for buffet dinner in the hotel because we didn't eat lunch. Dinner was ok. After dinner, we walked thru Nanjing road to the Bund.
The night lights were beautiful.

10/29, We had Xilong Boa for breakfast, then visited Shanghai Museum. My husband spent 6 hours to check out all the exhibits. The audio guide was wonderful and made the visit more interesting. We had dinner at Meilongzhen restaurant - it was ok but not great. After dinner, we took a taxi to the bund and took a one hour cruise. It was great. The weather was good, not too cold and the night lights were beautiful. Dennis had a good time taking a lot of night pictures.

10/30 We had soy milk and Chinese donuts for breakfast. We visited the Shanghai city planning museum. It was very interesting to see the size of the city, the suburb of Shanghai and its future development plans. But it was sad to see the pollution - not only Shanghai. I feel bad for the people who live there. I hope the government will start doing some real work to ease the problems. We had dinner at Quanjude roast duck restaurant. When we arrived around 6:30pm with reservation, they sent us to their annex room. I was glad we refused the offer because the room and environment looked terrible. We came back up to the main dining room and got a table within 5 minutes. Later we saw a small area with a nonsmoking sign. The dinner was good and reasonable.

10/31 We got to our Suzhou Renaissance hotel around noon. We had lunch in the cafe, then visited Tiger Hill. A lot of constructions went on in the city area, so the traffic was terrible. We hired(50rmb) a local guide to explain the sites within the Tiger Hill garden. After we entered the garden, we took a shuttle(20rmb per person) to the top of Tiger Hill, then walked back down. It was nice! Then we visited the Grand Canal - it was a nice walk and the night lights came up just before we left(around 5pm). We had a good buffet dinner in the hotel(it was included in our room rate). My sister had their usual massage and enjoyed it very much.

11/1 We visited the new Suzhou museum(by I.M.Pei)- simple architecture. The outdoor garden and the pond were very interesting. Afterwards we visited the Humble Admin's Garden - a classic and typical Chinese garden with man-made pavallion and water. It was very nice! We had an excellent
Chinese dinner in the hotel. We had the seaonal crab again and it was very good.

11/2 We arrived at the Nanjing Sofitel Galaxy around 1pm. The rooms were not ready yet. We had our lunch first, then got our room keys. One of the rooms had problem - maintenance people were not able to fix the bathroom shower door and announced not safe to stay in the room. The floor housekeeping head gave me a room facing construction site and I refused to take the room. It was dark and noisy. She said it won't be too bad. But I just walked out and back to the unsafe room while she and the luggage carrier called the reception. After a few minutes, they came back and gave me an upgraded room. Around 3:30pm, we walked to the Xuanwu lake. It was a nice walk, but not very interesting. We had a buffet dinner (included in our room rate) in the hotel. There was a special with the buffet dinner - added 28rmb per person for all-you-can eat seasonal hairy crabs(of course not from Yangcheng lake).

11/3 We visited Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum - With deep historical significance(Father of Modern China). Walking up the 392 steps to visit the building was fine. We should have hired a local guide to make the trip more interesting. We bought the combination ticket, so we took a shuttle bus on the right side of the road after descending from the steps. The bus took us to the entrance of Mingxiaoling Mausoleum which was located at the southern foot of Zhongshan (Purple) Mountain. There were not much to see except the 12 paris of the stone animals guarding the tomb on the sacred way. Afterwards we took a taxi back to the hotel. We had the same buffet dinner with crabs. The food was not that good, but they had good meat(beef steaks and lamb chops). The rice was cold.

11/4 flew to Hong Kong and stayed in Langham Place hotel on Shanghai street, Mongkok, Kowllon. We
were there for 8 nights visiting friends and relatives.

Overall we had a wonderful time:

1) Best scenery was Jiuzhaigou - it is a must if you enjoy viewing water!
2) Best hotel was Xihu State Guest House - the ground is beautiful.
3) Worst hotels were Huangshan golf hotel and Beihei hotel(we knew ahead of time, so it was not a disappointment.). The better rooms in Beihei hotel should be in 散花精舍.
4) Best city/village/town was Huangshan area (foot of Huangshan).
5) Worst city/village - Xitang.
6) Best pedestrain only street - Tunxi old street.
7) Things least expected - the terrible pollutions in Chengdu, Xian, Hangzhou and Suzhou.
8) Things least expected - Pedestrains and drivers didn't follow rules/laws.
9) Dangerous incident - halfway crossing the street on the pedestrain walkway, cars kept coming toward us. My brother-in-law started to walk back, I followed and my husband almost hit by a motor bicycle! NEVER TURN BACK WHILE CROSSING A STREET IN CHINA.
10) Dangerous incident - The van drivier backed up to enter the freeway after drove passed the freeway exit. I begged him not to backup and he didn't listen(I was glad we were ok).

Betty,
Thanks for sharing all the good info.
I admire a group of non-young-young persons (I hope you are not offended by my using this term; I mean only respect) organizing their own travel in China. Bravo.
One question: why would you bring granola to a country with a millenary snack culture? In fact some of the snacks there may be millenary. Just kidding.
But truly, China has great snacks. I would have deprived myself of granola snack and happily make do with all the dumplings and shaobing (fried gallette) and preserved fruit and dried octopus and fruit-flavored beef/pork jerky. Sigh.
I read with great sympathy - plus laughs too - your stories of the chaotic traffic scene in China.
Once on a plane in China, I was so scared I clawed the stranger next to me. I wasn't even aware I was doing it; the stranger, very gentlemanly, asked me kindly to let go of his arm. Very embarrassing.
Once in Beijing I screamed when my taxi driver accelerated toward pedestrians walking against the light. The driver did slow down but scolded me for cramming his style. He spit out his words in utter contempt: "look at what you made me do. Look at them. They are crossing now."

i could only laugh (& CRINGE!) when i read of your taxi riding accounts. the first day in beijing i thought we were going to die.... and that thought didn't leave until we were dropped off at the airport in shanghai! what i did learn about crossing the streets: travel in packs and even better tailing an elderly chinese man! thanks for your report.

We heard too many stories about having stomach problems during China visits. We visited Jiuzhaigou early on (the 3rd day of our trip)and definitely we didn't dare to eat street food. I am happy to say that we were healthly during the trip and after we got home. The only local street goodies we had were roasted chestnuts, onion pancake and handmade peanut candies. My favorite food in China were the fresh handmade noodles and dumplings. In Suzhou hotel we met a group of 40 Americans just got off the Yangze 3 gorge cruise, 20 members got stomach flu. The day before we left Hong Kong to fly home, we had some tasty street food - stinky tofu, octopus and barbecue squab!

I looooooove stinky tofu.
Fellow STs, you won't believe this, but stinky tofu is the real name, not the nickname, of the dish.
Betty, stinky tofu is good in HK, but it really is a S'hai specialty. You should have tasted it in S'hai too.
Onion pancake is another of my fave street food items. But those one can make at home. -- Who in his right mind would want to make stinky tofu at home and have THAT as one's home fragrance?