Tian Bao Holiday Chengde

... directions. The views of the valley were even more beautiful than the falls to me. Further up I ran into a Chinese woman who fancied herself and English speaker and quickly locked me in generic conversation. I did my best to humor her but she ended up thinking I was born in Tianjin, then asking me how I got here (bus or car). I said bike, she said no...<br><br>Anyways, past that little sub-adventure, above the falls there was a little stone hut with ...

The day of the 4th and 5th we took a long distance bus to the nearby prefecture-level city of Chengde. Chengde is well knows as the Summer Resort during the dynasties where the emperors would travel to escape the heat. Much of the mountain city is taken up by 'Bishushanzhuang', aka the Summer Resort. And, of course, this was our highest order to see.<br><br> The summer resort itself is basically a ...

... more like trail-mates as we wended our way together along the ancient bastion.<br><br><br> Although it's only a distance of about thirteen km from Jinshanling to Simatai, the walk takes nearly four sweaty hours as the trail is extremely steep in places and, at times, the crumbling stonework requires careful footwork. It was nearly 10.30 when I set off and the mist, which I had hoped would burn off, showed no signs of rising ...

Well, I'll keep the personal bits of this leg of my trip to a minimum. Let me just say that this was the first time I met with my gals parents and family (basically all of whom were home for the holiday), with which we stayed for 7 days all while taking in the sites and new experiences of the surrounding lands.<br><br> The rest of the drive from Jixian was very fun and I took a lot of ...

Bonjour, j'espere que ca va bien chez vous, on me dit que la meteo est repugnante au Quebec... Ici il fait trop chaud et on reve qu'il fasse 18 hehe.<br><br>Ca fait plus d'une semaine que Facebook est bloque. On suppose que c'est du aux tueries qui ont eu lieu dans l'ouset du pays. En esperant que ca se reglera bientot.<br><br>Nous voici a Chengde, une ville a peu pres a 4h de route au nord est de Beijing meme si c'est a moins de 200km. Desormais nos ...

Greetings again, now from Chengde, the site of the former summer residence of the Qing Emperors, not far from Beijing. <br><br>On a long drive yesterday we left the rather dull and grim industrialised region around Datong - a flat landscape of crop fields interrupted by the chimneys of mines and brickworks, pumping out dark smoke rising to join the smog layer that gathers on the horizon at times - for the pleasure of lush green mountains, a view ...

Coming from Beijing to Chenge was like a breath of fresh air. I can understand why the Qing Emperor decided to have Chengde as their retreat, the montain resort away from the hectic Beijing. I planned to have Chengde as a day trip, which was not only possible, but I could miss the charming and the relax attitude of the local. Chengde is well known for the Mountain Resort (Bishu Sanzhuang) and its 8 outlaying temples. <br><br>The train left Beijing ...

We checked out of our Beijing hostel for 2 days, and headed to Chengde, 250km to the north. We took the train, surrounded by thousands of Chinese people, so it was hot and crowded. Once there we checked into a nice hotel (no hostels) and then went for dinner. We went to a restaurant that did Italian food, so I ordered the carbonara. What I got was pasta with pineapple and onion soup. Not carbonara! It was the strangest thing ever. Still, we had nice milkshakes to drink. Anyway the ...

... first bit of dog. She said it was a little 'fatty' - must have been a solid Chow Chow, they tend to be a little plumper. Pork and dog are next to each other in the vocab book. - We won a weeing Buddha in a 'pop the balloon with a dart' competition on the street side. Everyone was very excited - the 40 locals gathered around us. ('They don't get many English round here') - We also witnessed the variation of the local exercise ...

So far today, as there is still plenty of time to go, it has been temple day. We've done a few. One thing I have certainly learnt about temples is that they like to be close to god. This of course means plenty of steps. The first one just kept going up and up but this did mean great views when you got to the top. At the top of the first one was a throne room which is the seat of the Dali Lama when he is in this part of China, built for the 60th ...