Shanxi Hotel Taiyuan

... crowd has gathered, someone will cry "Taiyuan" and the crowd will ooh and ahh in a "Oh you mean Taiyuan, sure you should have said" kind of way!

Ticket successfully in hand, we followed our Bus Lady across the road to our sleeper. (She had the most beautiful boots) The bus was filled with the tiniest bunk beds you've ever seen. Just about big enough for a short leprechaun to lie on his side and curl up his feet. (mild exaggeration only)

The bus ...

... 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.

... 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 ...

... saw this man who worked for the bank until he was fourteen, when the bank was closed. He was still writing checks, although now as souveniers, at the age of 80. We toured all over the bank, but after we headed back to the hotel we need a major nap before we left. It is hard smiling and being gracious all the time, you wouldn't think it would be, but it really is. After our naps we headed to the airport. We gave Ms. Niu our gifts ...

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.

... we would come to her house for dinner. We said yes and she wrote the place to meet in chinese. At 7pm we hopped in a cab then waited at the place until she arrived. She said that she had gotten a call to go back to the gorge after she left us and it was raining with no visibility. She made us a dinner which was fun to share in her small place. I'll blog more about this later. For now it is time to catch a flight.

... 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 ...

... have taken the ancients longer than this!! The site of the Army of Terracotta Warriors itself was awesome. There were five buildings that we went into: the first building housed two half-sized bronze chariots. The detail of these chariots was amazing, but sadly the rooms, in my opinion, were somewhat poorly lit, which made it harder the take in the entire splendor of these chariots. The second building was were we got to ...

... streets are very far away from the train station and strangely the area around the train station lacked the usual cheap hotels that fight for your money. No one would budge in price and that included even two of the hotels in the Lonely Planet and these are most of the time the one's who do. The staff at the Tielu Hotel rudely laughed in our face which to me ...

... only reason they came and spoke with us - they were forced to!! Haha Now, I know what most people will say, "Have you made an effort to talk with them?". Yes. On several occasions myself and another foreign teacher have asked them to dinner or whatever and always we're rebuked. The other teacher even went so far as to arrange a get-together, buying food and drinks and such, at his apartment only to be blown off by all just before it was to begin! I ...