Fen Jiu Hotel Taiyuan

... crowd has gathered, someone will cry "Taiyuan" and the crowd will ooh and ahh in a "Oh you mean Taiyuan, sure you should have said" kind of way!

Ticket successfully in hand, we followed our Bus Lady across the road to our sleeper. (She had the most beautiful boots) The bus was filled with the tiniest bunk beds you've ever seen. Just about big enough for a short leprechaun to lie on his side and curl up his feet. (mild exaggeration only)

The bus ...

... br>Taiyuan mel byt pro nas jen prestupni stanice, ale nakonec jsme v nem stravili cele odpoledne. Taiyaun je vice nezmilionove mesto, prestavbu centra dokoncili pred 2 roky. Hlavni ulice je misty az dvanacti proudova dalnice. Nikde tu nikdy nedelaji nic maleho. Asi sem nejezdi moc turistu. Vsude na nas zirali a v obchodech se nas ani nesnazili moc natahnout, takze jsme tam vubec nesmlouvali. Zasli jsme na jidlo, do muzea umeni provnicie Shanxi a posedeli v mistnim parku.

... In some cases, taking part in a face-to-face class could be inconvenient due to scheduling, traffics, safety, etc, especially for those kids who intends to learn Chinese for Children. Online mandarin Chinese ...

... a drink.

After we got off the flight in Taiyuan, Ms. Niu was there to meet us. You'll notice there aren't a lot of picture of us in this entry and that is because when we met her she had brought a professional photographer who was going to take pictures of us. I have to say it takes a really long time to do anything when you have to stop every 5 minutes to get a picture taken of you (by yourself usually) in front of ...

We get dropped off at the Qingxu service station at 2:30am. There's a 24hr convenient store, we find a row of plastic seats and tries to make it until the sun comes up. We have been on the road nonstop for 18 hours, have to wait 7 more hours before we can find a bed.

... and we should consider paying 150 yuan for a english speaking guide. Since Mike had really wanted to come here and we had made the extra moves to get here we paid the extra for the guide. Our guide's english name was Lucy, a young woman who just graduated with a degree as a tour guide. She met us at the hotel which was good since we had to change buses along the way. The weather was forecast to rain an ...

... jsme v Cine navstivili. Cestu sem jsme naplanovali tak nejak vseobecne v ramci cestovani po Shanxi v domeni, ze tu preci neco zajimaveho byt musi, kdyz je to hlavnismesto provincie. Neni. Mesto ma pouze dve turisticke zajimavosti, Dve pagody a chram Jinci. Chram jsme vubec nenasli (az o par dni pozdeji, kdyz jsme sem nechtene museli zavitat zase), dve pagody jsou normalni pagody. Udelali jsme si k nim vylet, nicmene cesta vede pres regulerni slum na vychodnim okraji ...

... in her native tongue that her mother had taught her when she was young on the bus ride home, and the entire day she carried about this stuffed flower with bright pink petals for us to follow. Before seeing the real Terracotta Warriors, we stopped at a workshop where they explained to us how the warriors would have been made. At this workshop, it takes them two months to fashion a full-sized warrior, and it's believed ...

... small walled city a few hours southwest, it was recommend by the guide book. We eventually managed to get a ticket for 7am to Pinyao on a hard seat. No remember I said the hard seat from Beijing to Datong was not as bad as I expected, this train was exactly as I expected. pretty much bench seats in a carriage from the 50s with a smoke haze you could cut with a knife.... oh and lots of very curious people for 2.5 hours.

... were nine of us, so safety in numbers!!! so we got to Da Tong at 7am and found this guy who would take us to the yugang grottoes, the hanging monestaries, and the wooden pagoda, and then drop us off in Wu Tai San, he wanted 200 kuai a piece, but sam loves to drive a bargain so got him down to 140 a piece which is about $17 a person, and Wu Tai San is five hours away from where we started, so it was an amazing deal, and then somehow we got the guy to buy us ...