TurtleBearTravels

GuangZhou for Zhong Jiu Jie The midautumn moon festival. We are a bit behind on our posts. This one comes from a trip we took to Guangzhou. A port city on the Pearl river delta known to be very much in the import/export business. We spent much of our time walking around the city. Some of our favorites were the herbal medicine streets stretching several blocks of bulk herbs coming and going from China. Guangzhou is also known for its dried foods such as the wall of flattened chickens and dried geckos on a stick. We also took a pearl river cruise at night to see the lights of the city. The pictures are captioned and will now have to suffice for a thousand words.... read more

We arrived in Kangding Western Sichuan. A beautiful town in the mountains at about 3,200m(10,400ft) above sea level. What was to be only a layover turned out to be a two week excursion. When we attempted to buy bus tickets north westward we were denied. We later found out that tickets were being denied to all westerners. It isn't official that westerners can't travel by bus but they won't sell the tickets to a westerners heading closer to Tibetan areas. We then decided to stay in the cool clear mountain air for a bit before heading back to the heat and smog of Chengdu's 13 million people. The next day we tried to go to Mugecuo or Wild Man Lake sporting hot springs and alpine lakes with possible swimming. So we got a taxi and headed ... read more

We have been traveling in Sichuan the past few weeks. We are having a wonderful time. Posting pictures and stories has been a challenge. We most recently took a boat to see Leshan the largest buddha in the world and climbed down the "number 1" sacred mountain in China's sichuan province, Emei Shan. We are now posting some photos from our visit to songpan and our previous visit to chengdu last week. More stories and pictures will be added as we have access. We also can't access facebook, youtube or blogspot. So anyone wondering where we are this seems to be the last place we have to post. More to come. ... read more

Beginnings of summer vacation... read more

Foreign Teacher expo ning Yian. This was a foreign teacher appreciation day for the teachers in our area Yongzhou City. We went to an area called Ning Yian. We were able to see a temple to a sun dynasty emperor, a mountian with etchings from li bai and a giant cave where we watched and did a performance. Everyone was told about the expo the day before or the night before, drove the next morning wandered around Ning Yian in a motorcade because each teacher or set of teachers had their own car and then did a performance with no prior warning. Eh that is the way that things are done here. Short for now we are on the road. ... read more