I’m not too sure how 4 days of traveling can feel like months but when 12pm rolled around and I was due to get in a taxi and then onto a shuttle bus to the airport to catch my flight from Xian to Gaungzhou my mood was akin to that of a traveler who has hit the six month mark on a round the world trip. I hadn’t realised just how much personality was lacking till I had a rather annoying taxi catching episode on rout to the airport shuttle bus. I was assured by the lady at the front desk [View Full Entry]

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I truthfully think that being late and rushing for things is a type of curse that follows me because no matter how much time I try and allow, in the hopes of being early or at least on time, I still seem to be late or only just on time. I was told that it would take 20minutes to get to the train station so I set aside an hour and low and behold the epic traffic in Beijing coupled with my idiotic taxi driver who thought it would be fun to drop me and my 30kgs of luggage the other [View Full Entry]

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I was very excited about a trip to see the Great Wall of China and we had heard only good things about the organised trip that could be booked through our hostel so we secured a place each, Maria and I, and we set our alarm clocks for 5am so that we could brave the freezing cold morning. 5:55 our transport arrived and two Germans, a Scot and I joined a bus with a couple of other people and off we headed for the three hour journey to Simatai for a 10km “hike” along the wall. To say that the wall [View Full Entry]

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Needless to say I only got to the airport 30minutes before my flight was due to take off so the China Air booking lady promptly told me I wouldn’t be getting on the flight bound for Beijing at 1:05 seeing some distress in my face she immediately started to check up on the later flight and not 5 minutes, after telling me I has in fact missed my flight, proceeded to inform me that in actual fact I was never booked on the 1:05 flight in the first place (contrary to my e-ticket) and that I was in actual fact only [View Full Entry]

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After Chusok weekend ended life switched from a nice even 80km/h pace to 250km/h on an autobahn in a country that didn’t seem like South Korea, it was a chaotic whirlwind but unforgettable none the less. The remaining four weeks that I had were filled with exam writing stress, mad school stress coupled with the need and desire to attend every Hash and every party that was on the cards. It really is true that it takes a year to settle into a place and from then on things get really awesome, this was most certainly the case for me! Coupled [View Full Entry]

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I never thought I would see a second Chusok weekend in South Korea but there I was 13 months in and so happy that we had a long weekend! Since staying in the city for Chusok was not at all what any of us had in mind we enlisted the services of Jusine’s very awesome Korean Co-teacher, Sophia, to help organise us a little get away to Gyeongju so see the cultural centre of South Korea. Naturally trying to co-ordinate train tickets on Chusok weekend for six girls all with different departure schedules proves a little challenging and getting myself a [View Full Entry]

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It’d been well over a year since I’d been to the beach and to say that I was missing some sun and surf would be an understatement and since my time left in the ROK was rapidly drawing to an end a trip to the easterly shores of South Korea was a must and so the call to Busan was made. 7 newly acquainted mates boarded a train at 11:15pm and we were on our way for a weekend of unbelievable fun! Transport in South Korea is just top class, the transport companies have ensured that even when traveling on the [View Full Entry]

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7:30pm and I was on a train in Osaka watching an atmospheric buzz of Kimono clad Japanese, while on route to a fireworks display, wondering how only three hours in Osaka could possibly have been so awesome! I arrived at Shin-Osaka station around 3:20, Oh sorry 3:21 Shinkansen time :-), in usual style I quickly made my way from Shin-Osaka, through the mayhem that is Osaka station and onwards to Fukushima (where I was booked to stay for the night) I checking in, dropped my bags all with a total turn-around time of 1hour 10 minutes, I’m learning how to optimise [View Full Entry]

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Captivating Hiroshima and Miyajima There is a down side to missing your 7:16 train...cause hot footing it to the station to see if there is perhaps a 7:40 train and finding out that the next train available to you is only at 9:50 results in an epic wait in the station! To top it off when you finally get on the train hoping to nap for a couple of hours to recuperate and discover you got booked to sit in seat 5A in car #6 AKA smokers car, totally not kiff !! I somehow managed to survive the smoke filled [View Full Entry]

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28th of August and there I was sitting on the bullet train sipping my English tea and eating a raisin bun (how I miss these pleasures) waiting for the trains departure bound for Odawara and onwards to Hakone for a full day of adventuring! It turned out to be a rather hectic but serene day all at the same time starting off with a jolted off the bullet train in Odawara because I had it in my mind that I had a 55min journey when in fact it was only 35minutes. Lucky I managed to jump off the train before the [View Full Entry]

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