Novotel Xinqiao Beijing

Apologies all that I have been so slack over the past week. I have been having too much fun with my most wonderful of hosts, Karman and Mark. Hong Kong is a wonderous city. Full of exotic tastes, shopping and locations to see (I know Kira is dying to hear bout my HK adventures). I was lucky enough to get through most of the major shopping districts, see a lot of the sights and spend a reasonable amount of the local currency. My favourite place to visit in Hong Kong was Stanley and Repulse Bay...

Bad news first folks. I have been hunting the area near where I have been staying without any luck of finding an active USB port. Perhaps I had better email IT Security seeking permission and raise a new ITOC, eh? This means that the photos will have to wait until I get home. On a lighter note, I had a good flight from Hong Kong to Beijing. Dragon Air is very basic and reminds me a little of Virgin, only in he fact that it is only the flight and none of the perks of flying. As I may have alre...

Peking ist eine lebendige und tolle City. Wir sind uns bewusst, dass das momentane Peking nicht das wirkliche Peking wiederspiegelt. Ueberall spuert man den Geist der Olympischen-Spiele (aktuell sind die Paralympics). Nur ab und zu haben wir Zugang zum alten Peking, den sogenannten Hutongs. Wir mussten die extra fuer Olympia aufgestellenten Sichtschuetze umgehen um einblick in diese spannende Welt zu erhalten. In Badaling haben wir die Grosse-Mauer besucht. Ein wirklich eindrueckliches Bauwer...

Hi! Ni Hao! I arrived in Beijing yesterday afternoon and met a senior couple who are on the tour with me. Can you believe they are from Langley?? I tried to see the Olympic venues, but you can't get even within viewing distance if you don't have an event ticket. Oh well... It did teach me how to ride the Beijing Subway system, which is quite good and clean. Today the couple and I went to the Forbidden City and did a tour around it. It is very hot and humid here. The forbidden City has had som...

Hello Well we are in China.......and it's busy alright. Got here on Friday, after the overnight train from Mongolia, which was action-packed. Aside from the bogies on ther train being changed, the real drama was a guy on our carriage being deported for having an expired visa. We were sharing a compartment with a Dutch couple who were in a group of about a dozen. One of their colleague's visa had expired 2 days earlier. So he's taken off the train at midnight with all his gear, and is intervie...

A visit to the Olympic Stadium and Qianmen area.

BEIJING !!! Capital of China & Peaking Roast Duck

The train from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing was a busy one, this time with many Westerner's on board... there were possibly more people from London on this train than you get on a commuter train back home! The 24 hour journey was incredibly dusty as we made our way out of Mongolia through the Gobi, reaching the Chinese border late in the evening. This was probably the most nerve racking of crossings yet as the Chinese officials checked c...

Keenan, mom, and dad took Ally and I to the airport Sunday morning to see us off. Our very long (11.5 hour) flight was fairly uneventful until the last 20 minutes, which were the worst 20 minutes of my life. Ally had her barf bag out but fortunately for me never actually used it. The rest of the flight we spent reading, synchronizing iPods, and me playing an hour of Mahjong before my laptop battery died. We both forgot to bring DVDs to watch but Air Canada provided Dream Girls, some low budge...

Traveler's note: Take the train from the airport and transfer at the metro. This is super cheap, easy, and can be faster than taking a cab. Also, checkout the Novotel on hotels.com. It was a 4 star hotel cheaper than a few hostels I stayed at while in China.

I woke up quite early and went on a mini walking tour of the area around my hotel I quickly found one of my favorite things about travel, street food. A lady was making fresh egg sandwiches with some type of spicy red sauce from a ...

Jason and I woke up and went for a walk through our neighborhood. I was sad to see that sandwich mama wasn't making her egg goodies but we did find a great little place for steamed dumplings and spicy green beans. Next we went to an area known as the 798. It's an old army "radio" factory that has been turned into Beijing's art district. Simply put it was awesome. You wonder around this old complex of buildings and warehouses and there are steam pipes and conduit running everywhere. All the bu...