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No.9 Jiangguo Mennei Street, Dongcheng District Beijing, China, 100005, 010-65126688
"He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man." Mao Zedong Well, with this in mind (and I've kept this one a bit of a secret) I thought I'd go one better, just in case. On the 17th of May, I took the opportunity of taking part in one of the world's most extraordinary marathons, the Great Wall of China Marathon. It takes the runners twice over a stretch of the Great Wall of China near Huangyaguan Village, about three hours north of Beijing. Conceived as the brainchild of one Sören R...
Beijing, Beijing, China garybarnes5-19-07 Beijing to Hong Kong After an action-packed morning full of blogging and packing, we set off for the Beijing airport. The hostel had given us a card with a map to the airport shuttle pick-up....it was fairly accurate but when we got to what we thought was the correct location, we could not see anything resembling a bus stop. Panning left, we saw several bus stops on the opposite corner - so we figured that MUST be the right area. When we got there, we tried to ask some locals who seem...
KOWLOON, Hong Kong romeroAfter a good night sleep we're ready to go. After breakfast we boarded our bus to take the tour of a Hutong. Once there we each got on a Rickshaw for a tour through the Hutong. These buildings are hundreds of years old and are designed in clusters. Its like a little city within a city. Looking very much like an alley, they are very narrow. Each living are in the Hutong has a gateway. Each Gateway leads to a central small courtyard. The gateway to each reflects the class of people living there...
Beijing, China shadowchaserFinally the sky has cleared. Not the nice blue of home but more blue, less grey than the fast few days. After breakfast at 6:30, we hit the bus at 8:30am. Today's destination was the Forbidden City, Tiananmen square, The Summer Palace and a pearl factory. We found we had quite a day with about 3 miles of walking through the Forbidden City, into Tiananmen Square where our bus was waiting on the other side. The Forbidden City is located at the very center of Beijing and its size can only be app...
Beijing, China shadowchaserI'm going to have to get by with a short blog today so please forgive me. What a packed day. We started off walking a few blocks away to an ancient observatory. At 94 degrees at 8:30am...it was going to be a long day. After this we started the drive to the Ming Tombs which was about one hour drive. After about 1.5 hours there we stopped for lunch which had to be one of the oddest combinations of Chinese and American Food. Along with the rice, some fish part soup we had french fires and chicke...
Beijing, China shadowchaser July 24, 2007
Beijing to Ulan Bataar by train
Our train tickets to Ulan Bataar, which we bought at the CITS office on the mezzanine at the International Hotel in Beijing, together cost us 1998 yuan. We have the deluxe soft sleeper which means we have one compartment all to ourselves. This train is often called the Trans-Siberian Railroad, but more properly called the Trans-Mongolian Railroad. Many, if not most, of the people on it are headed to Moscow. So we can still get away w...

... if this was the case - he but certainly looked rather waxy! The irony of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" even makes its way into the holiest of sites for Chinese communists: As soon as you exit the central chamber you find yourself in a gift shop! In the evening we went for a meal and drinks with our Dutch friends, who had found a rather nice beer emporium near their hotel. We think perhaps they have a sixth sense for them. We ...
Beijing, Beijing, China mattgavinFinally got off our last of four overnight train rides to another sea of people at the station. fighting our way through the taxi line (we have learnt to throw elbows and push and swing our packs to make room - no more being taken advantage of for these two girls. we would never get anything or go anywhere in China if we kept our Canadian politeness...) Beijing seems to have a smoggy haze constantly - when the sun rises and sets you can see the red through the "fog ...
Beijing, China monita... Beijing! We meet our guide, Aiko (sp?) after waiting about ½ hour (yes we were getting a little concerned that something had gone awry). They took us directly to the Peninsula Palace and as the name implies, we feel like royalty. The hotel is lovely, beautifully appointed, very professionally operated, and well located. I think almost every Shi-shi designer has a shop in the lobby. Hey we even have wireless internet access and broadband in our room! Our guide gave ...
Beijing, China mcmullin... grade of fuel and then pump. I watch a few cars do this before I try it. Of course I get it wrong and only gas up half a tank. But I'm carrying a 5 gallon tank of gas in th sidecar so I head off for Russia. The road that should take me through Ludza to the border ends at a dead end. And it is literally a dead end, ending at the entrance to a cemetary. So I take the only other road which seems to be taking me northwards a long ways before I finally see the Russian border ...
Beijing, China jimbosidecar
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