MikeAndKelly

Butchart Gardens, Victoria BC... read more

Seattle Space Needle Experience Music Project and The Science Fiction Museum Pike Place Market Underground Tour Harbor Cruise... read more

Shinkansen to Tokyo Station Our final destination, Tokyo. Getting off the Shinkansen we found an information desk that helped us with the subway system to get to the stop nearest our hotel in Akasaka (not to be confused with Asakusa). The subways in Tokyo are easy to navigate for both Asians and Westerners, the color coding with numbering system made things very easy. The most confusing things about the Tokyo subways system is that there are three major lines, all run separately needing a different type of ticket. From the main Tokyo station we picked up a subway map and easily made it to our hotel. Walking out of the subway we were greeted with skyscrapers and buildings all around and was a little difficult to find our hotel among them but we lucked out and ... read more

Shanghai, the largest city in China and the most populous in the world. Shanghai was hosting a World Fair, we had seen advertisements in the other cities we had visited and were far more numerous here. We were told it was geared for Chinese tourists who have little chance to travel abroad and also the lines just to buy tickets and get in could take hours so we had no intentions of trying to visit. Because of the Expo, most hotels were booked so we stayed in one further away but since it wasn't far from a subway stop it didn't take too long to get into town. After lunch we figured out the subway system (you had to pay more the longer you traveled, a whopping 4 Yuan each one way) we got off the ... read more

Terracotta Army We awoke a couple of hours before we arrived in Xian by train. The countryside was beautiful with mountains and deep gorges (bad farming practices leading to erosion?), I wish I had gotten video's of that. The primary reason for going to Xian was to see the Terracotta Army. When looking for tours in Beijing to set up an itinerary I noticed quite a few offering day trips to Xian typically with an overnight train there and back to Beijing but I figured I could do it myself one way - once we got to Beijing I wanted to maximize our time and did manage to schedule a private tour to pick us up at the train station and they were flexible to modify their tour to what we wanted to do...almost. Just a ... read more