GypsyKing - Gypsy King Adventures!

Jenny and I have been living and working here in DanYang, China since February, 2009, and blogging about our adventures on my original Blogger blog, www.gypsykingadventures.blogspot.com.

However, the Great Firewall of China (www.greatfirewallofchina.org) has been turned up higher for the anniversary month of Tienanmen Square uprising so the powers that be have blocked access to www.Blogger.com throughout the entire country, along with a host of other sites they feel may lead to any type of dissent, such as hotmail, flickr, twitter, even BBC is blocked regularly. Even Google is not coming up consistently so it is also being censored by officials here in China, albeit sporadically.

Until our original blog can be up again and we can access and update our adventures, we will be blogging from this location and keeping you all in touch with what's happening over here in the Middle Kingdom...

It's all part of the fun!!

Private Message Subscribe Top Photos Blog Map

Guestbook Search Blogs First Entry Latest Entry

Joined on: June 12th 2006
Last Login: June 28th 2009

Blog Entries: 24
Photos: 163

TB Code: [blogger=18646]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by GypsyKing, order by Date newest first.

By GypsyKing
June 22nd 2009

Schoooooooools Out For Summer!! Asia » China » Jiangsu » Danyang

Class 3, Last Day before Summer

Went out for a nice meal this evening for our once a week date night :), and although at 6:00pm, it was a balmy 94 degrees here in DanYang, the #1 bus offered us a nice breeze and for 1 yuan apiece, you just can't beat the scenery, the smells, the immersion deep into everyday life here in central China. We love taking the bus these days basically because a cab gouges us for 6 yuan (about .60) but the bus takes us to the same place, albeit with a little xtra diesel fuel for flavor, and costs only 1 yuan [View Full Entry]

By GypsyKing
June 15th 2009

Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) Part II Asia » China » Anhui » Huangshan

Hop in...
The cable car was new and in great working condition...which helped, because we were high, very high, and the wind was howling even at 8am...

After the turbulent bus ride to Tangkou, all I could think about when I got off and looked around was, where is hotel and how far of a walk is it? A friendly man in a dark blue Adidas track suit greeted us, pulled out a card with his restaurant (in English!), and began chatting with us. He wasn't selling anything, he was just friendly. He introduced himself and asked us where we were staying. He knew where our hotel was and said he would take us to the hotel. Our instincts were good and sure enough, within minutes we were [View Full Entry]

By GypsyKing
June 14th 2009

Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) Part 1... Asia » China » Anhui » Huangshan

More buses...
A few hours on a bus from Hangzhou to Huanshan sounded peaceful enough...wrong! Honking, swerving, sliding, perilous close calls...we were a wreck by the time we got to Tangkou, but hey, the scenery w... [more]

Hello Everyone! This is Jennifer again, and we are back from over a week of vacation as our students were taking the College Entrance Test (the Gao Kao). I know it has been a long time since I have written. I am still angry about the other blog website access being “taken” away from us, www.blogger.com, so part of my absence has been some sort of rebellion at having to start up again on a different website. But, I have missed writing and I do have some great things to tell you about... so here I am! We just got [View Full Entry]

By GypsyKing
June 13th 2009

All Quiet on the Eastern Front... Asia » China » Jiangsu » Danyang

I almost ran right smack into her, which would have been awful because like most of the Chinese students here, she is barely five feet tall and I doubt she weighs 100 pounds soaking wet. With Audioslave blaring in my iPod, and sweat dripping off my bald head and stinging my eyes, I was on my 2nd lap around our high school track in the middle of the day. It's hot here now, so hot the surface of the track seems to stick to my running shoes just enough to pull me back and make me feel sluggish, as if I'm [View Full Entry]

By GypsyKing
June 4th 2009

A dark anniversary leads to a silver lining... Asia » China » Jiangsu » Danyang

All is well in the Land of the Misinformed and Comfortably Protected, namely mainland China. Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square protests and for obvious reasons I'm not saying much about what this government does or does not do in response. I'm not on anybody's radar and I want to keep it that way. In the back of my head I keep hearing Dana Carvey's deadly accurate impression of George Bush on SNL, with the President at the microphone addressing reporters, "It just wouldn't be prudent. Nope. Not Prudent." If you want to read about how China is [View Full Entry]

By GypsyKing
May 24th 2009

Class Trip with the English Club... Asia » China » Jiangsu » Danyang

DSCN3079
Some of the girls listening to the planning stages of where we are going for our trip...

Along with the sixteen classes I teach each week here at my high school (55 kids per class = around 960 kids), I agreed to also teach an additional two classes on Wednesday afternoons for a group of bright, motivated kids for an English Club (EC). They asked Jenny to help me (thankfully!) so we both get together and teach thirty-two of the top English speaking students at my school and we really enjoy these kids because they can express themselves in English fairly well, even though they are in their first year, Grade 1, of high school English. The English [View Full Entry]

By GypsyKing
May 19th 2009

Burned by the Great Firewall of China... Asia » China » Jiangsu » Danyang

5/19/09 12:32pm Along with adventure travel comes irony. And irony abounds here in our small city of DanYang, China. Everything seems to be going great here as far as teaching, enjoying our city, seeing the other areas of China on the weekends, but last night the internet began to hiccup for a few hours. First we could not get online at all, and then when we did finally get back online it was intermittent, and once it finally seemed to settle down and all was well in cyberspace, suddenly we could no longer even access Google with any confidence. This morning, [View Full Entry]

By GypsyKing
July 19th 2006

An UnBullievable Trip!! North America » United States » Florida » Tampa

In honor of Ray Ducharme
Ray was trampled and partially paralyzed in the arena a few days before Mark and I had our adventure. Our best wishes go out to him and his family.

Back in sunny, Tampa,. Florida. Back to my most excellent bed. My overgrown yard. Back in traffic. Back to work. Back in traffic. Back at Starbuck's gulping down Venti Iced Latte's like a madman. Back to telling stories to my friends instead of living them. Back to normal life. Back to dreaming of my next adventure! Nothing helps though - my heart and mind are still running through the early morning streets of Pamplona, the excitement of the unknown barreling down on me like a tsunami of people and beasts moving at an astounding pace - then suddenly overwhelming me, enveloping [View Full Entry]

Gored in the thigh the day before our run!

By GypsyKing
July 17th 2006

Will I Never Learn... = ) Europe » Spain » District of Madrid

Art, Art, Everywhere...

On the flight home now after a chaotic morning…went out last night for our last evening in Madrid and really had a blast. Started with trying something other than tapas and so we found a place called Doner Kapob, I think they may be international because I think I’ve seen them in other countries and the food was delicious, just what we needed to remind us there is something other than jamon and queso bocadillas (sandwiches with ham and cheese). The best part about the meal were the really cool polo shirts the workers were all wearing with the [View Full Entry]

By GypsyKing
July 15th 2006

Culture Abounds in Madrid Europe » Spain » District of Madrid

Fuentede Neptuno (fountain of neptune)

We've been enjoying ourselves here in this beautiful city. Madrid is a mixture of the old Spanish culture and the new, hip and young blood that is thriving here on the great food, cheap attractions and entertainment, and a never ending supply of new visitors (like us for instance.) I'm headed off for the world's only art walk in the world which includes painting, sculpture, architecture and nature, in one of Madrid's most attractive areas: Paseo del Prado. I hope to see three museams of global renown: the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofia National Art Centre. I [View Full Entry]

TravelBlog » GypsyKing

GypsyKing | Gypsy King Adventures! | Travel Blog

GypsyKing - Gypsy King Adventures!

Blogs & Travel Journals