After a few days in Lhasa we felt the need to move out into the country. We'd had a great few days looking around the temples, but Lhasa is by far the most touristy place we have been and we wanted to see some scenery!! We arranged a 6 day trip out of Lhasa by jeep, sharing with Philip and Will, two brits we met on the train here. The plan was to travel via the old south road (now replaced by the "Friendship Highway") to the small town of Gyantse, then to Tibet's second city Zhigatse, then on the Everest [View Full Entry]

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As mentioned in our previous entry, the problem with being in China for Chinese new year is that travel is so difficult! After abandoning our plans to travel to Wutai Shan because of the lack of transport, we still had to travel back to Beijing to try to get tickets to Xi'An (7 hours in the wrong direction!). We sat on the bus (surprisingly comfy!) with a Jackie Chan film blasting out from the TV, and tried to think what to do. In the end, we decided that we should try to find a way of avoiding the post NYE travel [View Full Entry]

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After our 2 week stay in Beijing, we felt ready to move on. The plan was for us to head to Xi'An, stopping at Datong city and Wutai Shan for a few days on the way. Wutai shan is one of the 4 buddhist mountains in China, and it seemed to be a nice opportunity to get out into the countryside. Sadly, once we arrived into Datong we were told that there were no buses out to wutai shan: the last one that ran only had 2 tourists on board so they had cancelled until the peak season. Still, we were [View Full Entry]

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How can you get lost when you are following something that you can see from space?? this was our thinking anyway! ever since planning to come to China we have wanted to walk and camp along the great wall. Once in Beijing we looked at a number of tours which allowed you to do this but they were too expensive! So..... armed with a map (in chinese!) and an itinery of the route which the tours take, we set off! We took the train from Beijing to Gubeiku where we were the only passengers to get off! We gained ourselves some [View Full Entry]

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You could be excused from thinking that Civil war was breaking out in China during the new year celebrations! Although the chinese don't go in for home made explosives (unlike the russians!), they do go in for the biggest bangs possible! During the week leading up to the New Year we had seen numerous stalls selling fairly impressive looking fireworks and were quite confused that we had't seen any advertisments for public displays- this is because the whole of Beijing was one big public display! If there was a 3 meter square section of road or path that was empty then [View Full Entry]

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The Forbidden City sums up all kinds of emotions (which probably origionate from it presence in various Ku Fu films!) but today the forbidden city is certainly open to all - except starbucks! The imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties lies in the center of the city of Beijing. It was called the Forbidden City at that time and renamed the Imperial Palace in 1925. Within the area of 720,000 sq m it occupies,there remain by now 980-some buildings,among which more than 90 date back to the Ming period,hollding 8,700some rooms and amounting to 150,000 sq m of floor [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys, this is just a quick one so that you can see our photos. The temple of heaven is in central Beijing, and was used for one of the most important ceremonies of the year - when the Emporer would offer sacrifice and prayer for the coming harvest. The buildings are amazing, made even more beautiful by the fact that they were the first fully restored imperial buildings we had seen. Every inch is covered in blue and gold paintwork, inside and out. We had planned to visit in the morning and move on, but we ended up staying for [View Full Entry]

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No trip to china is complete without visiting the Great Wall, and after seeing it we can see why. I was expecting to be dissapointed, but the Wall lived up to all of the hype, even at the ultra-touristy Badaling section that we visited. After our first few days in Beijing getting our bearings and working out how to ask for noodles (we havent managed to get the pronunciation yet) we were contacted be Pete Zhang, who works for the Beijing office of Goodwin Int (our employer before leaving the UK). He arranged for us to meet him and his new [View Full Entry]

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Many major cities have an "Ice bar" where everything is made of ice - the chairs, tables, glasses and even the building! Well imagine an entire city made of ice! And then imagine it at night, and then imagine it lit up with bright lights - now you are at the Harbin Ice Lantern Festival! The Ice Lantern Festival is one of the Events that Harbin is most Famous for and we were expecing some pretty impressive sculptures but were not prepared for the sheer scale of the City! Driving past during the day we caught a glimpse of the entrence [View Full Entry]

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Hello all, sorry that this has taken so long to post but that last week or so has been pretty hectic. We arrived into Harbin on the train from Vladivostok early yesterday morning. We noticed the difference with Russia straight away; people smiled at us!!! couldnt believe it. Lots of people we have met have said that the Chinese may stop and stare at us (being westerners), but this hasnt really happened so far. The northern provinces (and Harbin in particular) are well used to Russian tourists and so i dont think a foreign face is that rare. After arriving into [View Full Entry]

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