China is a big country. And 2008 is a big year for the most populous nation on earth. It hasn't been a great year so far for China, what with snow storms, the Tibet riots, disruption to the Olympic Flame, and now . . . a huge earthquake that may claim up to 50,000 people. The Sichuan earthquake, also know as the Wenchuan quake, took place last M...

Another early start to go and see the Giant Buddha in Leshan. The journey seemed to take a long time but we saw a lot of countryside, all of which seemed still to be under smog. China seems to be very clean as there are road sweepers employed everywhere. The giant Buddha is huge and we looked at him from every angle. You start at his head and wa...

Next stop was Chengdu, where we spent 3 lovely and relaxing days. We started early sunday morning with the panda reserve which was brilliant. Although the pandas are obviously in captivity they had quite good living conditions (other than the hoardes of tourists who seem to have no regard for the signs asking them to respect the pandas' need for...

This weekend, we had an immense amount of fun. Friday night, we went out with other volunteers, and we found a KTV (karaoke) bar. Usually these are in the Japanese style, with a private room for each group of people, but this one was in the American style, one big room for everyone. So we sang and danced with the Chinese people there, and it was...

A... We last left you in Lijiang, a chocolate box Chinese village that turned into a very soggy chocolate box when the rain caught up with us. This gave us a chance to play chase the chicken feet round the hotpot bowl and invent new ways of purging grey soy bean noodles from our bodies. C... As Lijiang was a bit of a wash out from the non-stop r...