So, beijing market day ....... First we caught a bus to the temple of heaven.  The bus was so crowded that no one  could move, but the bus driver kept letting people board the bus.  Eventually I was too squashed, so we jumped off at the subway and caught the Metro.     We found a market and bought some sweet bread, tomat...

Indeed, it's all Chinese to me! I know that this is the most cliched thing that one can possibly say as they are exploring China, but I am a sucker for such cliches! I arrived in Beijing on Friday on the overnight train from Ulanbaatar - what a blast. I wish that I had been able to take the longer train from Moscow because I really enjoyed the c...

We made plans with our new found friends to have dinner together. So Liza and I spent most of the day in our room doing laundry and getting ready to go to Chengdu the next day. We found out today that the train to Lhasa had been completed and was running all the way to Beijing; we discussed taking the train back to Beijing due to the fact that w...