Well hello everyone!  We know it has been quite a long time since our last update.  We have been a little busy with traveling and settling back into school life.  I'm going to fill you in on a little secret though, because our #1 writer (Kevin) is busy filling out graduate school and fellowship applications you are all stuck with ...

it might seem strange to call a place that i've experienced for all of a week 'familiar' but that's still how it felt to arrive at the beijing train station early thursday morning. my time in the north-east hadn't gone as smoothly as i'd hoped, and the ease with which i navigated the subway and streets to return to the hostel i'd stayed at previ...

We leave the hostel early to catch our train to Datong in teh Shanxi region. The train station is huge more like a skyscraper and i'm a little concerned that finding our platform will be a problem but it's cool. The train is cramped not what i expected but for three pounds i'm not complaining and at least we're seatd which some poor sods aren't....

  The next morning we rose early and got ready to do some independent travel to get to the Yungang caves. We ate some local porridge and bread, and got on the town bus to the train station to buy tickets for that night to Beijing, and get a bus to the caves. We realized we needed some money but we figured we would find an ATM close to the s...

Next stop Datong, entry point to Mongolia, basically the sticks. We left from Beijing Central train station which was chaos, as a westerner, and we where the only ones there, you get some funny looks, remember this destination is off the tourist trail, just how much you will see. We where on a hard seat and for anyone who knows the Chinese rail ...

First morning in Beijing.I was rash to go to west Beijing train station. Because I hard now is a vacation season for Chinese people so it is difficult to get a train ticket. I jumped up a local bus and find a seat. Luckily a woman beside me can speak Japanese. She studied in my hometown, Osaka,Japan and she said she has a friend who work in a tr...

an epic border crossing this time, at 6 hours the longest i have ever done! have ticket for hohot, but as pull into jining many bail out of train, and realise could probably get to datong where we are heading from here instead. in hurry gather things and hop out. as we are heading to the ticket office for the next train, i realise i have left my...

I've just recently learned that an old friend from home has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. We still don't know the cause, but I just wanted to take a moment to remember Ryan, a good friend, very accomplished musician and all around great guy. Wish I could make it back for the funeral, but my thoughts will be with Ryan and all of you at h...

We were woken by the carriage guard at about 0630 and we battled through the crowds to the platform where we were picked up by a man from CITS (China International Tourism Service). We backpackers are very easy to spot in a crowd, and he seemed to have found pretty much all the travellers in the place as we were all crammed into his office. We w...

"Look at the beautiful red-head boy! Can I have my picture taken with him?" This seemed to be the general theme we heard as Nate became famous throughout the semi-arid hill country of Shanxi Province: the land of Buddhist caves, coal mining cities, and holy mountains. After the first dozen photoshoots with Nate and groups of Chinese tourists, Na...