Sunshine Hotel Xianning

... and I can use my American License to drive. He is working on how to get me a Chinese License, though!!

It is very different driving in China. The person in the front has the right away- this means if I pull out in front of you while you are going 60mph, I have the right away. They are crazy. When you have a generation of new drivers,this is what you get. Most of the drivers ...

This entry has little to do with anything other than boredom. We haven't traveled anywhere or done anything overly exciting. I'm going to post an assortment of pictures from our neighbourhood - the outdoor market where buy hundreds of mandarin oranges, people-watch on a regular basis and eat all too regularly. "Rice or noodles?" is an oft-asked question when deciding just what kind of dollar-or-less street food you might be in the mood for. Anyone ...

... also tried some frog. "Very big frog" according to our local hosts. Everything, amphibians included, was excellent and the whole wedding was only about 3 hours start to finish, including the drinking, the ceremony, the eating, and the drinking.

We were informed that next week we will be off to Hangzhou, on the east coast, with half of the faculty from our school. We don't know why. We just had an ...

Back in Wuhan after 7 months and its great to se Erica again. I also have been doing some meeting with her classes to talk about Ali's and My round the world trip. It even more amazing to them then to us as not too many people in China get to travel abroad and they definately would not sell everything they own to do it. Its great spending time with the students as they are so keen and helpful and want to take you round to show ...

... eat in a restaurant when 2 yuan (30 cents) gets you a massive nan-like piece of bread full of onions and greasy goodness? Or fried egg buns. Or dumplings. Or yogurt in an earthenware cup. People are playful. I didn't notice this at first. Maybe it was the craziness or the shock of China but now I notice that a lot more people on average than I'm used to are just silly and playful. Up until the last couple days I ...

... more scenic and longer western steps. It also turned out to be a very popular route with Chinese tour groups, which left some stunning spots a bit less than serene. We cruised our way down the thousands of steps, taking plenty of stops to rest our shaking fatigued legs and to enjoy the outlook. Our legs were pretty weak by the time we made it to the bottom and found a bus back to town. We had hours to wait before our ...

... I'm not going to write much here for the internet connection I have is very expensive ($1 per five minutes) but highly reliable. I'd prefer to share my photos. We spent the day visiting 2 villages, an ink factory and Hagnshuan... a very friendly place... before boarding our overnight train to Shanghai. Departed at 10:30pm and arrived in amazing Shanghai 11 hours later. More about Shanghai later.

... before moving on to their next destination. Given that this is one of my favourite TV shows, I was most impressed when we stumbled across the keys they had to open to move on. On our descent back to the hotel, we passed through the most amazing gardens and scenery I've seen in China - Lonely Planet got it right! It truly is amazing and has made my travels here so worth it. I was relieved to have made it back to the hotel where I relaxed, had dinner and slept ever so well.

... having a few difficult days/interactions with him. We are getting on very well now, and having my own space is really helping me deal with things a lot easier here. The hotel we are staying at is sensational, situated in a most amazing scenic part of Yellow Mountain. Pity about the weather though... very misty and wet. It was relaxing sitting in the hotel's lobby on comfortable sofas drinking the night away with my favourite people on this tour... Rachel, Judy and Ari.

... along this winding, relatively narrow river, very close up to the cliff faces. The water was wonderfully blue and hopefully some great photos captured. There was a stop to get on even smaller boats to visit the Three Mini Gorges (why do gorges always come in threes?), which is pretty much a narrow stream running at the bottom of deep chasms. It seemed the Chinese tourists are quite demanding about how many activities they get to do on a tour and so ...