Honglin Hotel Nanning

It's been quite a while since I last updated this, my original plan was to update after each country... but after almost six weeks in China and 13 cities visited, a lot has happened, and it's impossible to give a day by day guide of what I got up to. Instead I'll try for a general overview and my impressions of China. While in the other countries we've so far visited there's a lot of traveler's doing familiar and well trodden routes, China's just so vast, its ...

This is my very first trip abroad with my best-friends, and i couldn't be more happier than spending 3-4 days with Irma &amp; Lisa...<br>It's the perfect getaway for our independence day weekend..<br><br>Booked ourselves travel package which include everything at reasonable price (i haven't been on "group tour" for such a long time, lately ...

My company China Fact Tours just gave me two days to visit Sanjiang. I had intended to visit the entire "Dong People's Eco-Museum" but it was impossible because the "museum" had one museum and nine separated villages. From one to another, they are at least 20 miles apart.I only chose to visit the Batuan Village. The village was set up in 1603. Like the other Dong people's village, Batuan village also has many legged buildings ...

In the adoption world, 'Gotcha Day' is the commonly known term as the day you get your adopted child and is celebrated each year similar to a birthday.  So today was our gotcha day!  Neela is everything we had hoped for - she is very cute and appears very healthy.  After about 30 seconds of crying she accepted Ruth and she hasn't cried since - actually she hasn't hardly made a sound.  She is very alert and observant and just taking it all in.  We have yet to really make her ...

... t have done more to make us feel welcome &amp; try to help us when we needed it! The 3 &amp; 1/2 weeks in China have been really eye opening &amp; I'd highly recommend foregoing a beach or ski holiday in the near future &amp; experiencing it for yourselves! I'm in Nanning, a day earlier than Rob, as we both fancied going solo for a couple of weeks &amp; seeing what experiences that yields! Pleased with our efforts of ...

... Chinese game also known as Mahjong. On the face of it, it resembled domino. At least for me. But then again, only someone like me who plays neither can claim that, as people who know more about it say the two have nothing in common save for a few outward semblances. Certainly, it didn't essentially matter at all. Except for the fact that I saw it first hand. We didn't stroll down the YuanHu Lu all the time, but soon turned into one of those smaller parallel alleys ...

... much easier than the train - motorbike - taxi - bus alternative! With travel arrangements sorted and our luggage deposited at our hotel we set out to do a bit of shopping. It was already 8pm, but the streets were packed with people eating at street stalls and browsing the shops. We'd kept putting off buying souvenirs in China this time as we were moving around so much we didn't have time to go to the post office and didn't fancy lugging them around either. But we ...

... go into a station. Then straight onto the platform. I found my carriage and sat down but had to move someone when the people due to sit in my seats got on. It was a really beautiful journey. The landscape continued as before with every bit of flat land taken up with farming, wider areas had a few houses in. Lanzhou it's self covers 30km in length but was a very narrow town. The scenery changed as the day went on but we were nearly always between the hills formed by the river ...

We were only here for a day---on our way to Guangzhou. Nanning is a pleasant city, but we didn't have time to see anything, so we just walked around, ate, and then got on the train to Guangzhou. Oh, I also bought sandals to replace my horribly ill-fitting boots and ditched the boots. But really, the only remarkable thing was that leaving our luggage at the train station cost 10RMB per bag, which is a holy rip-off.

The flight from Hanoi basically just jumps over the border and plops you down in China, southernmost China. Once there, the airport is pretty basic. Everybody pretty much seems to be piling into a van, so I follow them. After a cruise through the countryside, the van finally makes its way into the center of town. From this point I'm on my own, a fact ...