From Chengdu to Shanghai, there are about 2000km. Of course, we could have taken a plane, but we would not have been able to appreciate the beautiful Chinese landscape. It took around 15 hours in this high speed train.I feel the support #2Jiuzhai Valley to Chengdu was a 10 hours bus trip. Chengdu to Shangai a 15h train ride:Chengdu train station:The countryside is hilly: a lot of bridges and tunnels on the way.So there is an odd but awesome story about my family. A few years ago, my dad did some research and found that we have an ancestor, Arnold Vissiere, who used to work for the French consulate in Shanghai, in the years 1890’s.He came as the official translator for the French delegation (at the time, there weren’t many French-Mandarin speakers!) and was quickly promoted to a more official role which was involving negotiations with the secretary of the Emperor. I was hoping to find information about my great-great-great uncle, so I sent an email to the Consul of France, Axel Cruau. He responded very quickly: ‘I forwarded your email to a group of French living in China who are passionate about History’. I received a phone call the day after and Han and I caught up with Didier and Nicolas for dinner.They said they had not slept much, looking for information about Arnold Vissiere. He is on the cover of this book, with the secretary of China.This picture is used for all sort of ‘event’ related to the old French/Chinese relations.Every single building from this period has been demolished (but more French buildings were erected in the 1920’s), except for this church, where Arnold’s son was baptised in 1892.This whole story was exciting! Didier wrote an article about my visit to the city of my ancestor. And he did not forget to mention that destiny had brought Han and I together, like a natural cycle of life… http://shanghaitours.canalblog.com/archives/2017/05/06/35252518.html