Splakawitz

We arrived at Qiaotou village in Zhongdian county a little confused about where to go for our hike… the signage isn’t all that great. After chatting with a few locals, we finally got our bearings straight and started walking. We checked our large bags with a hostel at the park entrance since we didn’t want to carry them the entire 16km length of the two day hike. We had already heard that this hike was extremely grueling even for very fit and experienced climbers, so we didn’t need to be weighed down. Unfortunately, we had nothing to carry water or a change of clothes in, so I ended up going to a convenience store and buying a bunch of plastic bags to toss our stuff in. We definitely did not look like seasoned hikers as we ... read more

Guilin was where the natural beauty of China started to become apparent for Nick and me. We had seen some gorgeous scenery up to this point but Guilin is where it started to become hard to get away from it. After our brutal overnight bus, we spent two nights in Guilin city and used it as a jumping off point. That part of the country is know for some of the most beautiful rice terraces so we took the two-hour journey to the village of Ping’An. That trip alone deserved a blog entry to itself. Not necessarily because of it’s beauty (and it was beautiful) but because of the death defying trip we endured to get there. The two-hour ride to Ping-An was nice enough. We even met a French guy staying at our hostel and ... read more

Hello everyone! After much harassment to post another blog (you know who you are), it is here! We have left the luxury of Hong Kong and Macau and we are now roughing it in little riverside villages and 14-hour train rides. We eased out of Hong Kong and Macau by spending a few days in Guangzhou after a brief stopover in China’s border town of Zhuhai. Unfortunately we weren’t able to spend enough time Zhuhai. We were there just enough to sample some of its phenomenal seafood cuisine and walk along the water. On to Guangzhou, it is one of China’s three “top tier” cities, along with Shanghai and Beijing. We were pleasantly surprised by how clean and lively the city was. I even got to ring in my 24th birthday there. We spent about three ... read more

Our first day of travel for our epic summer adventure started with a train ride to Shanghai Hongqiao where we then hopped on an airport shuttle over to Pudong. After the 45 minute ride, things appeared to be going smoothly. Unfortunately our flight ended up being delayed for 2 hours, and the line at customs to enter Hong Kong took about another hour. By the time we reached our hotel, it was 2 in the morning. We ended up running downstairs and walking around for a few minutes before settling in with a beer and sandwich from the nearest 7-11 to celebrate the victory. The next morning we got up and enjoyed what is arguably the best dim sum I’ve ever had. It was delicious. We had shrimp dumplings, radish cakes, barbecued pork buns, and egg ... read more

Greetings, and apologies for taking so long to post our next blog! We stayed fairly low-key leading up to our latest vacation. We had May 1st-6th off from teaching for China’s May Day holiday, so we flew off to Sanya. Sanya is located on Hainan Island, which is China's southern most province. It is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the country and it is known as China's Hawaii. We started our journey late Monday night after Nick and I were both done teaching. We had a rough start to our vacation with a freak downpour making it impossible to catch a cab to the train station, but eventually made it just in time. Once we got to Shanghai, we had to wait overnight for our flight to leave early Tuesday morning. We ... read more

About a month ago, when Lauren and I had submitted our passports to the local immigration office for the processing of our residency permits, we stayed here in Changzhou for the weekend. One of the first things we did was purchase bikes to help us get around town a little quicker. The following day, I had the crazy notion to take my new bike on a 40+ mile long ride to the shores of Lake Tai. The lake is very famous throughout China, and is the third largest lake in the entire country. Several large urban areas have been built near its edges, but most areas remain fairly rural. A piece of the Changzhou municipality touches the lake, so I decided to check it out for the day. It took several hours to get to the ... read more