Oukaier Hotel Tonglu

Today was pretty much a waiting day. Geckos had done their usual trick of changing the itinerary to make it cheaper, so we had to hang around until 9pm to get an overnight train to Shanghai. We had some food, did some shopping, went on the internet and read our books by the river before boarding the train. We are not due to arrive into Shanghai until 11am tomorrow.

It's not a bloody ant hill at all!! We were up at 5am today so that we could get our 5.30am taxi to the foot of the mountain for a 6.30am start. We then had a choice. The mountain walk we were doing comes in three parts, up the west, across & up and then down the east. For the up part and the down par, you can use a cable car if you want (by the way, this was another rip off by Geckos - I will explain in my summary at the end of the tour). Me, Lorna, Jilly & Claire had already ...

Hello All, Sorry that I have not updated my travelblog recently. I have been extremely busy this last week with midterms and all. We just finished them today! I am glad be finished... Not only did we have test this week but we also had class in the morning, my mind is worn out!!!! Tomorrow we are going on a class trip to Thousand Island Lake I don't know what to expect except that we have to be on the bus by 6:50 am. There are a few pictures that I am posting ...

... headed back to Matt's to get ready for the evening. We decide to go to an ex-pat bar so we can meet up with Liz, and one of Matt's friends Sam from Australia. We had a blast at this place. They had all kinds of beer, foosball (although a little janky), dartboards, pool tables, and TVs with American and English sports on everywhere. It was a great transition from Asia back to the States for tomorrow. Sam was a hoot and a half and we had an awesome time. There was some ...

... For dinner, we went to a restaurant near the Bund. It was probably one of the best meals I have ever had. There was a huge terrace were we could look at the river and all of the surrounding buildings, which are lit up at night. Afterwards, we walked along the Bund again, but this time it was filled with a ton of peddlers and beggars who were automatically drawn to us like mosquitoes to a light. Pug and Trey ...

... out the address in English and Mandarin. This was very helpful. We jump in 2 cabs (4 people per cab ONLY) and start driving around these streets that look like Cabrini Green without all the glitz and glamour. We are a little bit worried, but have faith in Matt. The drivers have a conference, we figure it out and go down this side street to a beautiful little hostel. We just checked in. 600 ml beers are one dollar and we are happy as can be! We actually split up where we slept ...

... I didn't see it at it's best. Also, being as famous as it is, it is correspondingly crowded even in the middle of winter. Crowds in China means not just people, but all the fairground that come with them - food stalls every 200 yards, electric golf carts to ferry lazy people around, tacky ways of wasting extortionate amounts of money, etc. And crowds mean I get stared at. I know I don't exactly look like a local, and ...

... full honours. And a tourist-trap of a tomb. Not much used to him if he's dead mind. Then got bus to the very very impressive Felai Feng and Lingyin Temple. The area has loasa of buddhas carved into the hillside's stone which are reall cool; the temple itself is HUOWGE and features a 25m high golden buddha in one hall and over 250 3ft statues of budha in another swastika-shaped hall. PLUS it has the added atrraction of being a fully-functional ...

... for a sustained period and, d) the small fat chinese women sat in the row in front of me to the right. Genius. What a women. hard really to pinpoint exactly why she was so entertaining; probably because she had two volume settings (off and loudhaler) and also because she spent the entire journey being angry on her mobile phone. I dont know why. Maybe she was supposed to be on a train to Beijing? At one point I actually tried to tell her she was on ...

... merita parecchio. Domani sera prendero il treno. Inizialmente volevo andare fino a Guilin, ma il viaggio sarebbe durato quasi un giorno e mezzo, ho pensato allora di frazionare il viaggio solo sulle notti. Cosi di giorno vedo una citta e di notte dormo viaggiando, Guilin aspettera un paio di giorni...Prima ci saranno Nanching e Changsha.