Life is an ocean of experiences and oyster of memories and we relish on them at some point time . They emerge as pearls from this unending ocean. China definitely has abundance of it to offer at least in my almost a decade of stay and nothing offers to greater joy then to pen them. Such was my trip to Tangshan . well to be honest wanted to really pen down a couple of months back buy I guess being busy becomes life some times.

It was my first time and was purely a business trip. However since I was with my friend and business associate Madhur so the fun quotient increased. Well we did not go fun hunting in the literal sense of the term but guess it came as a bonus. Well we went on curvy roads with less traffic and decided to click a few pictures on the way. Finally we made it to the factory amidst dusty surroundings and well was kind of wonder struck as the factory literally speaking was kind of a factory town. Well we did come across Tangshan city on the way to this industrial area though . The place still has a mix of some of the old flavours of a Chinese town and new developments with huge glossy buildings as usual. But this is what I like about travelling hinterlands in china and I never lost the charm. The other part is I expected a small town but realized later that is is one of the most important cities in Hebei province a very old one as well as a heavy industrial one. Exciting …

Well understood from our driver that this city is named after Mountain Tang which is situated in the heart of the city . besides this he also increased my curiosity about a huge earthquake happened in the seventies which I learnt was very true . Tangshan to my amazement has a history of more then 4000 year old , a village from the time of Tang Dynasty 619-907 and developed with oil exploration, ceramics industry and agriculture. Neverthe less we did not actually got a sightseeing touch rather after reaching our destination it was a factory seeing tour, a huge chemical factory.

After we finished our gruelling tour we were in for a pleasant surprise actually when we went for lunch . Well going for business lunches/ dinners in really fancy restaurants in china , every body knows about it but this one was I would say really astonishing and beyond my expectation in that barren Industrial Area. We went to a hotel I donot remember the name now which I was given to understand also belongs to the same owner as that of the factory which definitely also was an element surprise . This hotel well frankly speaking looks like Mountain Tang itself in that area . A monstrous building which stood tallest and can be sighted from a distance actually made it difficult to get into my cellphone camera however we did end up taking a few pics . The entrance towers will make some palace towers shy and equally impressive was its massive lobby, interiors and the rooms . The lunch went on till late afternoon and we really relished on the food and yes sums up my bundles of surprise for this trip . We started back to Beijing in the evening and I thus added up one more feather to my experience curve of china . However I made a decision to return and this time would be purely sightseeing.

Director