Xiluoyuan Hostel Beijing

... British except for us and a New Zealander who lives permanently in London. We are also younger than all of them by at least 20 years, except for the new Zealander. That's what happens when you go on an epic (=read expensive) journey. They are all quite nice. We went for dinner together a local restaurant and sampled a Beijing tradition - Peking duck. It wasn't bad, but I found it greasy, and my stomach was still in turmoil from ...

... helpful. No one’s held me that accountable for my tones before! Unfortunately, my stomach wasn’t feeling so well that day and I stayed in while everyone else went out dancing. I was very glad to have my Cipro!

Saturday July 4th- Hutongs and Houhai Lake

I felt better the next day, which was good because we had our first group field trip. All 140 of us (except for some poor kid who got left behind ...

... tourist attraction that Chinese and foreign visitors visit as a curiosity. Most of the area has been converted to a large park. As most people in Beijing live in large apartment complexes that hold large numbers of small apartment, they have a need for being out in parks to see grass and trees. As this is a weekday, the parks are full of senior Chinese people along with some younger Chinese people that are not working at the time. There are groups doing Thi Che , a slow dance ...

... woman walking down the street and ask them in Chinese how to get to Xixhimen Station.  The younger woman speaks English and asks me what line I'm taking.  She apologizes for her English not being very good (I hear that quite a bit) and I apologize for my Mandarin not being very good. Then she says to follow her. She asks a teenager who's walking down the street where the station is and the girl tells her, then the woman points me in the right direction.  I walk in that ...

Today was our last day in China. It has been an amazing trip, but I am feeling every mile and am ready to return. That does not mean, however, that we didn't make the most out of our time today. This morning Rachel and I parted ways for the day, as she went to spend some time with her cousin living in Beijing. I met up with Yufei and a friend of Yufei's (Fang) to go to the Summer palace. It was lovely and amazing to see that every little ...

... hardly made any progress at all. That was ok, but we also realized that we had to pick up the pace if we were to see much during the three or four hours we had planned for the visit. TIPS The Forbidden City is located right in the middle of Beijing - in the heart of the city. It is also known as GuGon or as the Palace Museum Get there when the gates open (around 8.30am) if you want to walk through the vast and ...

... are able to chat with local house owner, I will be your interpreter. As we sit in the yard of the farmhouse we can see the mysterious Great Wall tower ¨C North tower in a distance. The tower has been there for more than ...

... Whooper Swan, Black-necked Grebe and Coot. Apart from the yellowish rape flower farm, there were also a number of tents along the road side. These are temporary homes for beekeepers from Sichuan, like the nomads, they search for rape flowers, release the bees to collect honey, pollen and other products. 11 August 2007: Xining -Ta'er Monastery We spent our morning at Ta'er Monastery (Kumbum Monastery) (塔爾寺) at 25 km away from Xining. This is ...

... which people know. Whew. Once the bus dropped us off, we also noticed a HUGE difference between here and Japan.....traffic. In Japan, EVERYONE waits until their light is green before crossing the street, even if there are no cars coming. Here....the moment we tried to cross the street it was like playing chicken. Apparently, Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way here...and lights are seemingly voluntary. It was insane. Luckily, our hostel was ...

... coke sellers, but they weren't too intrusive, and we ended having some fun with them by switching the tables and offering to sell them various items from our day pack. After a long day on the wall, day four was quite relaxed, especially as we both had hangovers, and just visited the Summer Palace in the afternoon. Similar to the temple of heaven, set in a park, very pleasant and relaxing. Returned to Shanghai on day five.