Blogs from Asia - page 13030

I went in for my first haircut last week. It was another great experience. There is something very odd about the salons here. They stay open until 11 PM, some even later. I inquired to a Chinese friend about it, and also read a little in a newspaper as to why this could be. Apparently some (in truth very few) hair cutting businesses are real ambitious businessmen…they use the salon as a cover for running a black market prostitution business. There are salons on every block, comparable to a Starbucks shop in Seattle (by the way, I am ironically typing this e-mail in a Suzhou Starbucks…who serve burnt and expensive lattes), and who don’t open until 9:30 AM. Supposedly the salons with dual prostitution businesses have the retro style spinning candy cane looking decorations outside ... read more

The Terra Cotta Warrior Soldiers are located in Lintong District, approx 1 1/2 hrs by car from Xi'an.....much of the area we saw is used for farming & very primitive. We read there are many factories producing computers, lg equipment & sewing machines in the district. The warriors were built in 246BC; are around 2,200 yrs old and were made of clay and hand painted. Emperor Qin Shi Huang had 700,000 laborers work for 37 yrs on his mausoleum, soldiers, horses with chariots. The scale of the warriors & horses is stunning. There are over 8,000 clay warriors, over 100,000 bronze utensils, chariots & horses. They are considered the 8th wonder of the world, the best preserved ruins of a primitive settlement, the earliest, the biggest, the most lavish and the most beautiful bronze chariots in ... read more

Today, we got the luck to have a free tour of Guangzhou thanks to our welcome university. We went to the temple of the Chen family’s ancestors I had already visited last Wednesday and we went to the Guangzhou museum which is in Yuexiu Park. As you already know how is the temple of the Chen Family’s ancestors, I will not tell you more about it. Let me just present you the Guangzhou museum… The pictures will explain you in a better way than mine what beautiful historical objects the museum encloses. ... read more

We arrived in Phnom Penh on Friday night after a 4 hour bus ride from Sihanoukville. After finding a hotel by the river we walked around town and had dinner at a great Indian restaurant before returning to the hotel to watch a DVD. On Saturday, we hired a tuk-tuk for the day and our first stop was the shooting range. I fired 12 bullets from an AK47 and 4 bullets from a Colt 45 at a paper target. Our next stop was the Killing Fields where thousands of Cambodian’s were brought to be executed during the Khmer Rouge regime. There were a total of 129 mass graves of which 86 were excavated and the skulls of over 8,000 men, women and children are displayed in a white stupa memorial. We then went to the Tuol ... read more

Khao San Road. Ground zero for backpackers in Bangkok. All I can say is thank god I didnt stay there myself. While I can accept that it can help ease the transition from west to east and back again, the fact that it has been completely (and I do mean completely) inundated with backpackers from all over the world leaves it somewhat lacking in the 'charm' department. It is basically a place where you hear every language but Thai and are able to pick up whatever it is you may have forgotten at home at prices that would make a Chattuchuk market vender pee his pants in excitement. That said, should any of you consider a trip to Thailand and want to stay there and fit in, then simply follow these instructions. As for your hair, ... read more