Blogs from Jilin, China, Asia - page 2

As it turns out, strangely enough, my days off here are exactly the same days off that i had back at home. Around the world mondays and tuedays seem to be the days that i was given to relax and enjoy the world. This last "weekend" i decided it was about time i did some adventuring around china and booked a ticket to see the great wall. The place i picked was Shan Hai guan, a place best known for where the wall meets the sea. I had seen this on the TV show ''An idiot abroad"where carl goes to china. I had a desire to walk in this awkward man's footsteps. I got the first ticket i could get which was a "hard sleeper'' train there, at midnight, and a ''hard seat'' train back and ... read more

Bai Cheng, escuelita rural白城支教 En China, durante el verano y siguiendo la tradición nacional, en las universidades se organizan grupos de voluntarios para dar clases en escuelas marginadas a estudiantes de escuelas primarias y secundarias. Este verano en la Universidad de Jilín se organizaron ocho grupos de 10 estudiantes cada uno para trabajar en distintas regiones de China. A nosotros nos asignaron una escuelita primaria llamada "Ming De" 明德小学 en la ciudad de Bai Cheng (白城). La escuela cuenta con unos 2.000 alumnos entre los cuales 600 son internos y está financiada por una organización de ayuda humanitaria taiwanesa. Bai Cheng está a 260Km de Changchun, al noroeste de la provincia de Jilín, en la frontera con Mongolia Interior. El suelo arenoso y el paisaje desértico distinguen el límite entre la llanura del noroeste chino y ... read more

Summer 2010 and I learned my fiance and I would have to travel to her home province of Jilin to be married. Prior to this I had never heard anything about Changchun, I didn't recognize the name, didn't recall anything from travel guides, books or movies. A friend back home told me it was the biggest city I had never heard about. He was right. Changchun is massive! I fully realized it the first day we took a cab from roughly one end of the city to the next and what felt like a one hour drive past seemingly endless sections of city. We were there in late August to early June and actually we were happy to find a fairly new, modern, 'western style' hotel just about a block away from the main train station ... read more

Wednesday the 16th was a festival holiday in China for the Dragon Boat Festival. The owners of the Woodland Youth Hostel invited us for lunch at their parents house in the back streets of Baihe. Luckily Helena and Lynn teach English at school, so conversation wasn't to bad. We ate homemade Dumplings and boiled eggs from their hens, they also have a superb veg garden and a large guard dog!Our legs were sore from sitting on the floor called a Kung. Thank you Zheng Family for your hospitality. ... read more

A 10.30 sleeper from Beijing to Shenyang capital of Liaoning province,arrived at 7.00am and tried to hail 6 taxis without success. None of them would take us to the Shenyang YH, don't know why,maybe language barrier. We ended up walking most of the way. Stayed 3 nights and visited the Imperial Palace,Botanical gardens and on the 3rd day Beiling Park to the North Tomb. We left again by train,early 7am,crossing into Tongue 160 km north in the province of Jilin.One night in a chain cheapy and another train to our main destination for the next 5 days Baihe which is only 200km from Vladivostok. Shenyang is not geared up for the tourists like Beijing, but the sites were the only highlight of our stay there. Oh and the Lao Bian Dumpling Restaurant which has been open ... read more