Miyajima Island Tracy this time. So 9 days to go in Japan. As we're only in Japan for a short time, we kind of felt we had to keep moving and seeing things. Which means we're knackered! But anyway, day 9 and the weather was supposed to be ok before turning to rain the next day, so we decided to go off to Miyajima island. This island was recommended as a side trip from Hiroshima by our guide book, and as we could use our rail pass to get the ferry over there too it seemed like a good idea. The [View Full Entry]

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So Tracy and I arrived in to Japan (Tokyo) from Beijing some 8/9 days or so ago now and as we are here 17 days this seemed a good point for me to pen something about our time here in Japan, but before I rattle away I just wanted to say a quick few things about China. I loved it. Thought overall it was a great place and would recommend it to anyone to visit. My personal favorite place was Yangshou (for the scenery and what we did there) closely followed by Shanghai and Chengdu. I would also recommend that unless [View Full Entry]

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It's now our last day in China (Tracy writing again). We leave (very early, too early) tomorrow morning to fly to Tokyo where we'll be for the next 17 days. Xi'an So we arrived late afternoon (day 19) into Xi'an after the very uncomfortable 6 hour train journey from Louyang. Xi'an was the city, according to John (our leader), with the most 'the best in the world' foods. He seemed to be determined to get us to try them all that day, so we spent the next 6 hours pretty much eating! Once we checked into our hotel (very central right [View Full Entry]

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So Tracy is off shopping and I am left with the duty of writing the next step of the blog. As Tracy said last time we got up extremely early on day 6 for the hot air balloon ride and then left Yangshuo mid afternoon and traveled 3+ hours to Liuzhou to pick up our 18 hour train journey to Yi Chang to start the Yangzi River Cruise (aka Yangtze). Yangzi River To be fair the journey wasn't that bad. We started out late, around 9-10 pm, and were in soft sleepers (4 people to a carriage and it has a [View Full Entry]

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Hong Kong On September 29 we flew from sunny Dubai and arrived in a very very wet Hong Kong. Unfortunately the first day was a bit of a write off as we arrived at 6am only to have to hang around, very zombie like due to a lack of sleep, until our room was ready. However, we didn't end up doing much in HK anyway! As Patrick has been there before (and I've been plenty of times) we didn't fancy doing much of the tourist stuff so most of our time was spent eating lots and drinking! The weather did clear [View Full Entry]

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Hello again! We're actually now in HK, being a bit slow with the blog update as expected, but we'll attempt to get back on schedule soon! Dubai was a great start to our trip. After the stress of packing up and leaving the UK, what we really needed was a bit of chill out time with not much running around. The Dingle family (Richard, Laura and 5 month old Layla) were fantastic hosts. We arrived on September 19 early doors, and within 10 minutes of walking in the door we were wisked down the beach with a view of the famous [View Full Entry]

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So, it's nearly time for us to leave! 10 days to go...... Welcome to travelblog. I was introduced to this site by friends I met in Bermuda, Steve and Sophie Ludgate, who did a fantastic job on keeping us updated with their round the world trip a few years ago. For those that know them I guarantee you now that I won't be doing as good a job, but I'll try!! So on September 18 we start on our round the world trip. We fly to Dubai to spend 10 days with the Dingle family, then onto Hong Kong to visit [View Full Entry]

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