Kongyiji Hotel Lanzhou

... It involves what must be hundreds of traditions and if you were to imagine the cheesiest wedding, multiply it by 2 and add about 17 percent you'd be somewhere there...that been said i quite liked it (and i didnt think id here myself say that...) The wedding starts from about six in the morning and they travel to each relatives house and drink tea or something. Then the groom along with around 8 'best men' meat in a hotel lobby along with the bridesmaids (about the same number ...

... Davame si "klasicke cinske" masove smesi, i kdyz dost jine nez u nas. Par zajimavych doporucenych prikladu: veprove s horkym melounem, kure s prudce osmahnutou cibulkou atd. Misa casto saha po jidlech s rybou, kvalita se lisi, uprava take, stane se take, ze prinesou studenou nakladanou. Samozrejme jsme okusili Pekingskou kachnu - neselhala ale ani nijak neprekvapila.
Po opusteni Pekingu se trochu kuchyne zacal menit. Tedy masove smesi zustavaji, ale pridavaji se lokalni ...

... to eat!). There were beautiful wall paintings, with Sakyamuni and the Past & Future Buddhas all making this a lovely hall. Next, the Dorjeling Lhakhang has a 4-headed Nampa Namse, along with the other 4 wisdom (Dhyani) Buddhas. The next upper chapel was fabulous, with a 3-dimensional mandala, paintings of Indian Tantric practitioners and 84 incredible images of Sakyapa mahasiddhas, assuming yoga positions and looking undoubtedly Indian. Other chapel rooms ...

... the twelve days before Christmas, but in most of the Western Church are the twelve days from Christmas until the beginning of Epiphany (January 6th; the 12 days count from December 25th until January 5th). In some traditions, the first day of Christmas begins on the evening of December 25th with the following day considered the First Day of Christmas (December 26th). In these traditions, the twelve days begin ...

... few of the other people on our trip. They wanted to know about our bus troubles and how the police helped us the night before. We ended up with a different bus to take us the rest of the way to Yixing. We arrived in Yixing around 4 in the afternoon. We did a little shopping for teapots around our hotel, and then headed to dinner. I bought my first Yixing teapot. It has a fish for a handle and feet. Yixing is known for it's "purple ...

... then headed out into the big blue and green world. I figured it was a good day to relax so instead of relaxing I figured that as it was blue why not do the adventure down the side of the mountain again and do the double Temple Adventure mainly to satisfy my curiosity as to why they built temples there in the first place. Just as I thought! The ...

... aren't a man until you've climbed the Great Wall. Maybe. I took the cable car. Mao also liked to joke about bodily functions. Surprisingly, bicycles are not that popular in Dalian. The government discourages bike riding because of the danger in Dalian's traffic. Too bad too, because Dalian is relatively flat. But they are probably right. Traffic is so chaotic that bicycles would make pedestrians the alternate targets.

... the northern edge of Meikou Calm Lake, it is a gorge like one-ray sky on water almost in the direction of north to south with the narrowest part of only two meters wide hardly for a cockleboat to pass through. There is a round pond with a diameter of about 20 meters at the end of One-Ray Sky on Water. Precipices stand high around the pond ...

... icons, and the colonel is a serious icon. They have a lot of chains here that feature some iconic figure's face on their signage and packaging, and that **** seems to go over well in a country known for plastering photos of Chairman Mao and such on every available surface. Plus the food is almost all deep fried. Everyone loves that. KFC has also clearly spent some time trying to figure out what the Chinese consumer wants, and the answer is ...

... and as a reward for putting down a revolt, in 1697 Erbedulla became the first "duke" with hereditary rights. They ruled in 9 generations up to 1930, and they were a stabilising force in Xingiang. This is pretty flash for a town which we thought had maybe 2 or more million (but later found, after doing a "google" that it had 300,000 - certainly not the population density of further East) which doesn't get a mention in the guide. After the tour, our lady was ...