Chris and Laura

We caught the Nozomi Shinkansen bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo which goes at about 300kph and only takes 2 and half hours. The train went past Mount Fuji but as it was quite cloudy we could only see the tip! Our first night in Tokyo was spent in a capsule hotel. Separated according to gender, I was on the 5th floor and Laura was on the 8th. They had separate communal bath rooms, PJs are supplied and no shoes are allowed. The capsules are pretty cozy with a TV, Radio and reading light to keep you entertained. You can just about sit up in them but that is about it. Once we had sorted our stuff out and put them into our lockers we went for a walk around Asakusa. We saw the Senso-ji Temple ... read more

We caught a bus from Tai'shan to Beijing. We were meant to leave at 8.30am but when we arrived we were told that it was late and we'd have to wait until 11am. No worries, we'll just read our books to kill the time. When 11am came around we were guided to the bus where we sat for 30 minutes while they filled the entire undercarriage and back half of the bus with boxes of produce that they would be delivering in Beijing! Must be cheaper than lorries! When we finally arrived in Beijing we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere again, but found the hostel without any problems this time. On our first night we went for Peking duck - which was pretty good, although not something that we'd rush to do again. ... read more

We got a cheap flight from Xi'an to Shanghai to cut down on the time the trains take! From the airport we caught the Maglev train to the city centre. This train goes at 430kph and takes only 8 minutes - Chris was very impressed! We found our hostel, had lunch and then went to Nanjing Road. This is a pedestrianised road famous for shopping. It was packed - worse than Oxford Street at Christmas! We walked down to the Bund and along the river. We then went to People's Square and sat in People's Park to watch the world go by. From here, we walked through the French Concession area which is likened to Kensington and Chelsea, and had some more dumplings in a nice restaurant! We caught the Metro home and found a channel ... read more

We left Chongqing on a bus at 4pm heading for Wanzhou, arriving there at 8pm in time to meet the cruise boat. The bus journey consisted of two crazy Chinese movies and lots of people hocking and spitting in the aisles - yes really!!! We arrived on the boat and found our cabin - not bad, though it did have a squat toilet - great! We went to the information counter to ask some questions but immediately found that having been told that no one would speak English really meant absolutely no English (apart from the sign INFORMATION in perfect English!!). With the help of a very smiley policeman and our sheet of questions written in Chinese that I had asked the hostel worker to write down for me, we managed to get some things sorted! ... read more

We got a dilapidated bus from Guangzhou to Yangshou which was supposed to take 10 hours but took 12 as we got a flat battery!! At one point having to bump-start the bus before we found a garage that stocked the correct replacement battery. As we got closer to Yangshou, the scenery got better. The town is famous for its limestone karsts and while the light was there, it made the journey more interesting! Despite telling the bus driver we wanted to get off at the main bus station as we would know where to go from there, he dropped us off somewhere else where a tout was waiting for us!! As it was dark and we didn't have a clue where we were we decided to go with him, even though we didn't believe that ... read more