Where To Travel In China During The Winter

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Hi,

I'm a female, American college student (of Chinese descent) going to China for the first time this December/January. I'll be applying to a few schools in Taiwan and China to see if I can study abroad for a spring semester as well. If none of that pans out, however, I still plan on traveling to China.

I wanted to turn to this board for help on deciding what your favorite cities/places are to visit. To give you a little bit of a background, I am a landscape architecture major (therefore I have Suzhou on my list), I speak Mandarin at a household level and have very low reading/writing skills. I am currently practicing my Mandarin and hope to take the new HSK 5 this fall. Though I highly dislike the cold, I love traveling and seeing new things so I'm willing to bundle up if it's really worth it (i.e. go up north...probably not Mongolia or Harbin...).

I don't have much interest in going to see the Great Wall or the Forbidden City. I don't enjoy being in throngs of tourists or souvenir shops. I do, however, have an interest in studying the character of a cool town or city especially if they've got some awesome urban parks. So if you chose your city based on its local character, I'd be pretty interested in checking it out.

So if you have any suggestions, any must-sees (not because Fodor's says you have to see it in order to have "done" a country, but because you really think so) I would really appreciate it!

Thanks!