Liyuan Hotel Taiyuan

... strange events as the bus driver began to drive again! <br><br>Five minutes up the road from where we had parked for the night, we turned into a bus station. Final destination! We were there in Taiyuan!! We had spent the night parked just metres from where we had wanted to be all along!! AArg!! Lost in translation!! The crew had a grand ole laugh at my confused and angry questioning!! Free nights accomodation all the same! <br><br>Love ye lots<br>Lucy and Adele! xxx<br>

... 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.<br>

How to learn Chinese is a frequently asked question. Occasionally, people would like to find a tutor to help them learn Chinese. Actually, in modern times with fast development of internet, online mandarin Chinese seems more ...

... lunch where I discovered the most amazing Shanxi noodles. They are a specialty here and they are hand made, you can put tomato (i know that sounds odd for China, right?) or beef sauce on them and it is great. I think it might be my favorite food in China so far. We also had this scary soup. It has little tiny shrimps in it, can you see their eyes? <br><br>After lunch we headed to the Qiao family courtyard where the film Raising the ...

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 ...

... chram (jedina vyjimka, studentske vstupne za 2 yuany), kde se mimo jine nachazi provincialni muzeum. Chram pekny, muzeum nic moc. Pak jsme vyrazili na autobusove nadrazi koupit listek, tam nam pratelsky sdelili, ze listek si muzeme koupit az v den odjezdu. Famy o tom, ze cestovani autobusem je levnejsi nez vlaky, jsou skutecne jenom famy. A studentske listky taky nemaji. Druhy den jsme se sbalili a s pevnym rozhodnutim se do Taiyuanu nikdy nevratit (haha) jsme ...

... of Xian - about an hour and a half bus ride. The bus ride was rough - everywhere we glanced, it seemed, there were dogs, which was uncanny since up to this day we had seen so few dogs in China. Even the bus seat covers had dogs on them!!! We missed, and still do miss, Seamus badly :( As it turned out, however, a hike up to Mount Hua Shan's west peak was just what we needed. I had initally feared that I had under-dressed ...

... washing in. The Terracotta Army is a must and well worth the bus trip out of Xian. If you go start with the 15 minute cinema show next to pit 1, as it sets the scene, then do the 3 pits in numerical order, the official guide route does the cinema at the end. You will need about 4 hours to do it all without rushing. The backpackers hostel by the southgate was well worth going to for the interweb ...

... a bus eventually stopped and I was so relieved that I forgot to ask where they were heading. That could have been a big mistake (I can't believe I didn't ask!) but luckily it was heading in the right direction. So, I finally made it back to Taiyuan in one piece and in plenty of time to catch the sleeper train Kaifeng. Yay! So all was good.... I thought..... well, not quite.... After about 2 hours in the train station an annoying virus/bug (not sure which) decided it didn't like me a ...