Royal Garden Hotel Taiyuan

... insisted that everyone take off their shoes on entry! So we lay on our sides enveloped in smelly feet odour! Pleasant! In fairness, it was cosy and warm though! The journey passed uneventfully. A toilet stop, a cheesy kung fu movie and some snoring..... Until....<br><br>The Bus pulled up to the side of the road, a few got out. Then the bus driver decided he'd have a nap. He had a ciggarette, climbed into one of the bunks and fell asleep. For about five hours ...

... 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>

... In some cases, taking part in a face-to-face class could be inconvenient due to scheduling, traffics, safety, etc, especially for those kids who intends to learn Chinese for Children. Online mandarin Chinese ...

... the highway somewhere. But we found him, on the highway in his car waiting. He was followed by a police escort who brought us into town, yes you heard me right, we had a police escort (lights flashing and everything) into town. This allowed us to go into the town via the north gate, which no one is supposed to do. <br><br>We got into the town and dropped off our bags in the hotel. The whole city is made up of the same stone as 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.

... of how tall it is. The third stop is from the bottom. By this time fog had lifted enough to see across. To get to the viewing spot one must walk through a park running along the river. The park was built to show materials used in the construction. A waterfall is made from stones used to show how they were cut and so forth. On the way back to the city we asked Lucy about a good place to eat and she ...

... v dost premrstene vysi a studentskou slevu nemaji (oni ji maji, ale s chuti vam vysvetli ze neplati pro cizince/dany typ prukazu/lidi co nejsou cinani/kdyz je venku osklivo) no proste des. Bydleni bylo taky problem. Chteli jsme tu stravit jednu noc, ale hotely tu maji dvojiho typu, bud blesarny nejhorsi za cenu Hiltonu a nebo pekne hotely, ale i ty mimo nasi cenovou kategorii. Nakonec jsme nasli hned u nadrazi docela pekny hotel za docela primerenou cenu, se snidani v ...

... also serves as a panda breeding center, which is extraordinary considering the dwindling panda population in the wild. With other animals (for they also had golden monkeys, snow leopards, ibises, black bears and a bunch of others), the center often keeps them for a couple of years, studies them and then releases them back into the wild. Being winter when we went, the park was basically disserted. But since it was cooler ...

... food and a karaoke machine! They gave me a nice card and sang a few songs and we played a few games and it was a very nice gesture by them. On Sunday, some students invited me out for Hoguo, which translates to Hot Pot in English. It's a fun way to have dinner and its where they have this large boiling pot with two areas, one spicy and one not. You order various foods, meats and veggies and noodles and then drop them in the boiling waters and ...

... Chinese beauracracy (two "counties" fight over the entrance area to the river and who controls it, so if its a nice day one county will go out and try to collect an entrance fee) we get in and hike a hillside trail to a built in the side of the cliff temple and take a spiral staircase to the top, where there are these tiny "cabins" I suppose you could stay in. We hike around a bit and eventually wind our way toward the river area and the ...