Die erste Woche ist rum, waren immer auf den Fuessen, denn viel gabs zu entdecken. Die Mauer, die gar lang aber auch recht hoch war, die Verbotene Stadt die kaiserlich gross war und der Sommerpalast am See wo es herrlich kuehl war, die Kung Fu-show mit viel Kitch und Seifenblasen. Das echte Peking findet man aber viel mehr ausserhalb konstruiert...

A train had been booked from UlaanBaatar to Beijing but in the loose sense of the word. In fact when we had booked the train 3 weeks ago, that was not in fact true at all. The guy who had booked was quite reluctant to commit to price or how we were actually going to get on this train but assured us we definitely would. With my most suspicious mi...

Our accommodation is hidden within the hutong district of Beijing, a few miles north of the Forbidden City. The hutong area is described in "Beijing For Fun" (Yue, Wang, Zhao; 2007) as follows: The mazy alleyways around old courtyard houses in parts of Beijing are called 'hutongs' in Chinese and are well-loved for their unique charm and atmosphe...

Note to the wise. If your map says it takes 20 mins to get to Tianaumen Sq & it takes you 40 mins bare this in mind when it advises you to get a bus to somewhere. Don't be tight fisted in China - it doesn't pay. The country is way to big for that! This is my lesson learned after walking for over 2 hours in some insane heat to find the Temple...

After a 30 hour train ride we finally made it to China, the landscape on the train changed dramatically from Mongolia into China, at first th eonly thing we saw outside our windows was flat desert, but as we woke up this morning the mountains had taken over, and although it was still a bit dry, the change was palpable. The architecture changed d...

This was our 3rd and final day of the tour in Beijing. Although we visited quite a few places, I could have spent another 3-4 days here looking at all I didn't see - Tiannamen Square, National Museum, local restaurants, etc.... One of the things you cannot miss here is all the construction activity. There is a lot going on for the 2008 Olympics,...

Well, I've just come home from a trip to YunMengShan, but that's actually not what this entry is about, this is just a few links to some news, and the reason why I'm sitting and doing that a Sunday evening is that I'm too tired and too sore to do anything else:-D I love travelling, and I love travelling in China. One place that has made a distin...

China Minsheng Bank Because the paperwork took so damn long the previous day, we had to open our bank accounts the next day. We went to the Minseng bank to open 1 use accounts. This account was only to be used to wire USD so that it could be converted to RMB to complete the purchase. If you thought the DMV was bad, apparently opening a bank acco...

After a very long, although not too unpleasant 2 day train journey, we have finally arrived in China! Luckily Chinese trains are nicer than Vietnamese trains! Although we are staying in a YHA hostel, hostels do not really exist in China, so we are actually staying in quite a nice hotel! Beijing is a lovely city - vast but very clean and a weird ...

In China, I did not have a lot of spare time, so here some working pictures too!