I took a bus tour, booked through the hotel, with eight other English-speaking people, plus our Chinese guide "Mike." There were three Canadians, three Australians, and a couple from the UK, and me. We traveled about an hour outside Beijing to Huai Zou to visit a jade factory and see the Ming Dynasty tombs. There wasn't too much to see on the ...

It takes a lot of faith in your guidebook to get on a random public bus and trust that you'll be able to get off at (and recognize) your destination.  Our goal today was the Summer Palace, about 12 km outside of the city.  That was a long way by public bus.  We took the metro to get closer and then found one of the buses that was ...

Arrived from Tokyo a day late, but ready tour.  We arrived at the hotel after about an hour bus ride from the airport.  Very audacious hotel-- huge fountain with a fountain containing hula girls, golden horses, and dancing dolphins ---- hmmm.  Nice place, but we are all so tired all we want to do is go to bed.  But first our ...

We went to tian'anmen square which is of course famous for its rather brutal display of violence against the protesting students (in what was it? '89?). Well I thought for this I would share with you the Chinese version of the story. First of all students sometimes get grand ideas but they don't always think them through. What works in the unite...

Hoooola Perdon por la tardanza...estuvo un poco complicado encontrar internet y tiempo sobre todo. Gracias muchas a todos por los mensajes. Estamos un poco atrasados con el blog asi que hago mejor 2 entries, empiezo por nuestra llegada a Beijing, y despu'es hago otro para Hong Kong...que es donde estamos ahora! Bueno, les cuento que la primera i...