There is a quote that I said to Randy one day that I think sums up what my goals were for this trip; it goes as such: [When Randy was showing me a picture that didn't turn out that well] "It looks like your trying to cram 2000 words into a picture that can only hold 1000." My point being, I wanted to see all of Asia in a three month trip; that is just too much beauty for such a small surface area. I knew I couldn't see everything, but I really wanted to see it all. We are [View Full Entry]

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Whoohoo! I know! I made it to Tibet. For some reason I never really thought I would make it here, I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that it's halfway around the world, 11,400 feet above sea-level, and is a police state controlled by a overwhelming Communist force that imposes harsh bureaucratic 'permits' to get here. Those could be some of the reasons, but I don't really know. It is very nice either way. The city, and in fact everything I have seen here, the terrain, the people, the blue sky, all of it is so amazing and nothing [View Full Entry]

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"That should be just enough time to get ready for our day." -- We are getting really tired of this big city. It's good we get a break almost exactly halfway through our trip, but I want to Get Out Of CHINA!! I know Tibet is still China, but getting there will mean I am one step closer to getting out of this country. We should have our permits tomrrow night. Then we can book a flight to Lhasa for Saturday morning. It's only about a four hour flight, which is much better than the 48 hour train ride it [View Full Entry]

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We have been in Beijing since the 22nd; that is five days in a large smoggy city. And when I say 'large' I mean really really large. I have been to many big cities, but this is just unreal. Randy and I have walked Rome, Paris, New York (Manhattan), but this city I find too much to walk. It is really flat, and the air is hard to breath and makes the sun more unbearable than any I have come across. The streets are some-what on an orginazed grid, but the blocks are just unending. I have been impressed by [View Full Entry]

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I understand the responsibility I took when I started this site, the same responsibility that a journalist has, giving the people the whole story in a timely fashion. Lately I have not been doing this. I want you all to know that I am trying, but the past few days have been quite stressful, aggravating, and the overall sense of a complete let-down by a few major sites in China. I don't like having expectation when I travel. What most people say and think, is just that, their opinion, which is always flawed. But when you think of something like [View Full Entry]

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Well we are back in Kun Ming, just waiting to get on a 16 hour night train to Chendu. I don't know if there is anything of intrest in the city itself; but I read/hear there are a couple good places a day trip away from it. But I don't know if we will stay there that long, comming out to Dali wasted a lot of our time. I think 'wasted' is a bit harsh, but really I didn't think much of the place. The local people were quite nice, the senery was good, good food, but, I still think [View Full Entry]

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I am writing from a town I didn't really think I would ever go, just something I had read about back in the states and circled it on our map of China. Now we are here and it is really nice. I had read it was a nice laid-back city with beautiful senery. But when we arrived after a four hour bus ride, my ideas shattered. It turns out that their is a New Dali and an Old Town Dali. New Dali is where our bus dropped us of and it is a busy city, with taxi's, lots of people, [View Full Entry]

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Lets make it official: For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to see these moutain formations in southern China, ride through little villages on a bike, and eat some crazy Chinese food. I can now say I (and Randy) have done these things. I don't have my camera card on me or I would put up all the amazing pictures we took. I still can't believe we have done all this. Today we met up with a local girl who spoke very good english and went on a bike ride through all the little villages. It was [View Full Entry]

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Well, we have finnally made it to, as the title says, the 'Picturesque' China I had hoped for. With weird green moutain formations, little villages, and lots and lots and lots of tourist information centers (almost none speak english and they are all selling the same thing: 'Boat cruise down the Li River...'; its too bad that when we really need them they turn out to be this way). But it ok, I think we got ourselves a resonably priced boat and if the man shows up with a boat then its all good. We got to Guilin this morning [View Full Entry]

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We are really enjoying our time here in Hong Kong; and that is precisely why we have stayed so long (three nights in one city is a long time for us; the only other cities we did that in is Paris and Amsterdam...). That, and we needed to get a new visa to get back into China... But I'd like to think we would have stayed this long anyway. We have spent the last couple days seeing the city and the boardering islands around it. The city is really one of the more beautiful I have seen in my travels, [View Full Entry]

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