Once again, I was surprised to wake up hangover free. We headed out for some breakfast and decided to check out the town next to Nanjiecun. We walked through the tunnel in the city wall, Choayangmen Gate. Inside the tunnels, there were some great sculpted murals on the walls of the tunnels. I enjoyed looking at those and it was another reminder that Nanjiecun is different to the rest of China. Through the other side of the tunnel, the contrast to Nanjiecun was quite stark. While Nanjiecun is quite stark and utilitarian with its red trimmed white building, this street in Linying County was full of traditional looking Chinese architecture and was really pretty. There were quite a few restaurants on the street and we just headed into one for breakfast. I had reganmian (hot dry ... read more

For breakfast we headed back to the noodle shop. I decided to try the spicy beef noodles today. They were yum. I really liked both kinds of noodles, I had here, but each bowl left me dripping in sweat. Oh to have Asian genes and to not sweat. We headed back to the guesthouse as the owner had offered to drive us to the place we wanted to visit as it was a little outside of town and it saved the faff of using public transportation or calling a cab. The guesthouse owner is an absolute legend, so friendly and helpful, nothing was too much bother for him. The drive to Di Shui (Water Dripping) Cave was pretty quick, only about 10-15 minutes. After paying our entrance fees, we decided to take the shuttle to the ... read more

A long train ride from Beijing deposited us in Shaoshan in the late afternoon. We walked out of the train station and straight into the rain. We called a taxi to take us to our guesthouse. However, there was a problem as he didn't have the right number plate to enter the village (only residents can enter for free, I guess), so he dropped us close by and the guesthouse owner came and picked us up for the final leg. The small village we were staying in was cute and quiet, such a contrast to Beijing. We were the first ever foreigners to stay at the guesthouse and they'd roped in their eldest daughter to translate. She was so sweet and had excellent English. We were staying at the Mao Jiaxuan Chong Hotel (毛家韶山冲饭店), which was ... read more

The train from Beijing Station took just over two and a half hours to reach Shanhaiguan. The train station is pretty small and I quickly worked out that I needed the south exit. No automated ticket checking here, just one bloke. I came out of the station and it felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, there were barely any people around. It was weird as train stations in China are usually bustling with people. There were a few taxi touts around but I ignored them and headed to the main road and headed right. It was about 4 or 5 kilometres to Laolongtou, I could have gotten the bus but decided to walk as it would give a better impression of the town. When I reached the end of the road I turned ... read more

To save money, I headed to McDonald's for breakfast, the whole thing (hash brown, McMuffin and coffee) was cheaper than the coffee I'd had in Starbucks the previous day. Saving a little cash is always good. The McDonald's was rammed, too, I didn't expect it to be so popular for breakfast. I had decided to see a couple of temples that morning. The first one wasn't too far away, so I headed there. The City God's Temple was built during the third year of the reign of Emperor Hongwu in 1370. The temple was originally an altar devoted to the enshrining and worshipping the guardian spirit of the city. However, during the Qing Dynasty, it was upgraded and rebuilt to become the City God's Temple. Only the main hall and pavilion survive from that time. The ... read more