China Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

People i met here, who contributed to and improved my trip: Juliana (Russia) My first impression of China was a positive one, a border town that was clean, friendly and modern, something that i really wasn't expecting. We managed to find a guy who took us to a bank to get some money, then a restaurant where we could wait, until our sleeper bus to Beijing departed. When the bus arrived, i boarded and the driver gave me a plastic bag, which i presumed was for rubbish. As i stepped foot on to ...

We are sadly leaving the wonderful, friendly, green area of Yangshou to return to busy, noisy, crowded Beijing.   We were in Yangshou so long the vendors recognised us and stopped to talk.   Several restaurants knew us and spoiled us when we came in.....  back to being annonomous...   sigh. ......    our departure airport is Beijing. so there is no getting around it.   We either have to leave or talk our three adult daughte...

I'm now heading to the airport in Shanghai and not looking forward to returning to Guangzhou because from that point on I will only be going in the direction of home (west) ... it's not that this full trip is over, I still have over 2 weeks left in B.C. Canada ... but the really big part of this travel experience of touring overseas will be ending on January 15th, 2007 :( Today (Jan 14th,2008), I finally decided on the leather boots I would buy and so left Shanghai with a bit of fa...

It's our last day in China. I spent the morning acting as travel agent, researching future accommodation options, checking flights, and day-dreaming about Bali. At some point in the mid morning I mentioned I’d like to go to Bally’s for a last workout, and Steve responded by rushing to get his workout clothes into the laundry. When it was time to leave he begged out -- clothes still wet. Very clever, that one. The warmth outside caught me off guard. The sun was for once winning the battle ...

At least this flight wasn't delayed! Flying another almost 6000 miles over the Pacific and I arrived back in San Francisco airport about 12 hours later. Time to unpack and look through my photos and update my blog. This trip took me almost 2000 km or 1200 miles by train and bus, and 2 domestic flights in China in less than 2 weeks. It was sort of a whirlwind tour of only part of the Silk Road in China. Is this for everyone? Definitely not, there were almost no 5 star hotels, and some places ...

 Our driver took us next to the Beijing Zoo, where he dropped us off out front so we could buy tickets, while he went in and parked in the lot  (presumeably to have another nap)   We bought our entry passes, and went to our first stop..the Panda House!  You could just buy tickets to the panda exhibit if you wanted to, but we got passes for the whole zoo.    Just inside, there was immediately a crowd of people gawking through the glass at the pandas...

Well, it's a long day! The road to the Ching east tombs was not straightforward to say the least. There were some really poor road conditions due to trucks carrying construction material, rocks, sand, etc. so that the air was so think with dust, it was pretty amazing. The trees at the side of the road were so covered in dirt they looked like fake trees. At one point, the road was blocked by some uniform wearing guys saying we had to take a detour through some farm back roads, and the back roa...

My train journey from Hong Kong to mainland China is a breeze; in an hour-something I'm in the Peoples Republic of China, worlds most populous country, economic powerhouse, manufacturer of half the things in your house. Probably. I'm on my way to Guangzhou, capital of the Guangdong province and centre of one of the three biggest economic regions of China. In Guangzhou I also planned to meet up with a TravBuddy: Calvin (zkw)!I was browsing TravBuddy a while back on information of southern Chin...

After having breakfast next to our gueshouse, we met Alan, our local guide again. This time our plan is to have bamboo boat rafting on Yulong River, Xingping town and Fishing Village. Firstly, we went to Xing Ping by mini bus (at the bus station in Yangshuo, there are regular mini busses to Xingping available). The trip to Xingping town took about 11/2 hours. After reached Xing Ping, we had lunch at his (Alan) relative's restaurant, it was really good. Then we took a small bambo...

   Este último día de estancia en Shanghai, había tiempo libre por la mañana y lo dedicamos a ir a ver el museo de Shanghai, situado en el centro de la ciudad, a dos paradas del metro del hotel. Eso hicimos tomamos el metro, que es muy fácil y en seguida estábamos allí. En esa zona están todos los edificios de administración de la ciudad, museos, ayuntamiento, salas de conciertos, y muchos edificios de bancos y compañías de seguros, todos muy nuevos y muy altos. Aqui hice...

  RELIGION TODAY IN CHINA   Ministry in China is unique because of the People's Republic of China government.  Communists have traditionally viewed religions with suspicion: If you have to believe in anything, why not believe in the Party?    Religion in China is going through a remarkable transition.  Officially, China is a secular state; however, the government sanctions five religions:          ...

The late night out and jet-lag conspired against me to make this a lazy day. I woke up late, grabbed some breakfast, then spent a few hours updating my blog and watching sumo wrestling on the hotel T.V. It was wild.I caught an 8 PM flight out of Beijing and arrived back in Los Angeles on 5 PM of the same day. Now I can add TIME TRAVELER!!! to the list of my accomplishments.

In der Nacht sind leider noch einige Leute ins Hostel gekommen und haben recht unangenehm laut die Nachtruhe der bereits schlafenden gestört. Bin überflüssigerweise früh aufgestanden, denn der Zug nach Peking hatte knapp eine Stunde Verspätung. Hab mich zum Bahnhof bringen lassen. Der Zug schließlich war eigentlich voll von Touristen, ich hab mein Abteil mit drei alten Damen aus Wales geteilt. Der Waggon war recht sauber und neu, bis aufs Klo, das wurde angeblich seit Moskau nicht geput...

Info variée et mélangée. Follow your nose: Je peux vous dire,  ca ne sent pas le quartier chinois nul part ici. Ya juste le notre qui a cette odeur de pas-frais. L'odeur habituelle est un mix d'épices, de kerosen, un petit je-ne-sais-quoi et une pincée de pollution. Rien a voir avec montréal! See through my eyes: On cotoie le tres beau et le plutot moche souvent dans la meme scene. L'apparence esthetique des choses semble plus ou moins importante. Il faut voir au dela. Mais quand...

I got a flight on Air Asia (great prices) from Macao to Bangkok. On the flight I had some thoughts on the country I've been in for the last year... China is a country I have spent a good number of years in, a number of times. I learned the language and developed a deep understanding of the people and culture. The food culture is very rich. Eating is very important to daily life in China and is an important way to socialize and forge human bonds for Chinese. The cuisine is varied the north ...