Hannah Newell
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Travel Blog Posts
November 2nd 2006
After a week in the Kansai area of Japan I took the shinkansen train up to Tokyo. I had met an english women, Joanna, on the tour in China and she was kind enough to let me stay with her whilst in Tokyo. She worked at the British Embassy and on my first weekend in Tokyo we went out of town to Chuzenji Lake which was about 3-4 hours drive north of Tokyo and stayed at the Ambassadors private villa right on the edge of the lake. The scenery was absolutely stunning and the villa had an amazing view out over the lake. The weather was a bit cooler as we were at about 1500m but it was great to see the changing colour of the leaves. We had a really relaxing weekend, drinking wine and ... read more
November 1st 2006
After spending a week in Kyoto I brought a railpass and did a couple of day trips before heading up to Tokyo. The trains are so fast that you can cover a lot of ground in one day. My first trip was to a nearby town called Nara with Hannah, who I had met on the boat coming over. Nara is Japan's first capital and is the number two tourist attraction in the Kansai region of Japan after Kyoto. Nara is a lovely town with quaint shopping streets and parks and also has a further 8 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We spent the day wandering around a large park area called Nara-Koen at the foot of Wakakusa-yama mountain. The park is home to 1200 deer that are so tame that you can approach them so we ... read more
October 26th 2006
The 48 hours crossing from Shanghai was very comfortable but we had one day of rough weather. There were only 30 passengers on the large boat so we had loads of space and spent our time watching dvds and relaxing. I met an english girl, also called Hannah and we got chatting to a very friendly and helpful guy from Japan, appropriately named 'Hero', short for 'Heroshi'. He introduced us to a famous Japanese animator who was on board and the lady drew our pictures for us which was fun as I have never had my picture drawn before. When we arrived in Osaka, Japan Hero put us all on the right trains to get to where we were going and gave us lots of useful information about where to go. It was like culture shock ... read more
October 17th 2006
We took a flight from Yichang up to Beijing and on the first day went to the Xiushui Silk Market where quite a few in the group had some suits and dresses made. The market was seven floors of crazy shopping and you could buy everything from jewellery to clothes to handicrafts. The bargaining here is as intense as I have ever seen but a lot of fun to watch. You could spend hours here but we just shopped for about 4 hours on the first day and would return later for more! We spent one of the days in Beijing visiting the most popular sights such as Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. We even got up at 5am to see the flag-raising ceremony that takes place in the square everyday at exactly sunrise and ... read more
October 14th 2006
From Xi'an we took our second overnight train south to the town of Yichang, home of the Three Gorges Dam and gateway to the Yangzi River. This time we were in the more luxurious 'soft-sleeper' class and shared a compartment of 4 people. It was a bit more of a relaxing journey and the scenery outside the train started to change from industry to countryside. After spending the morning in Yichang we went to visit the Three-Gorges Dam project. The dam is mostly completed, except for the power stations and the whole project is due to be completed in 2009. We had a local guide for this part of the trip and as we took the drive to the dam he informed us of how happy the community were to have this project built and how ... read more
October 9th 2006
One of the most amazing things about China is the size and population of it's cities. I expected the cities of Beijing and Shanghai to be massive but when our guide, David, told us on the train to Nanjing that we were going to a smaller town a few hours from Shanghai by train, in my mind I was expecting something tiny in comparison to Shanghai but in fact Nanjing itself has a population of over 5 million people and is a huge city in its own right and this is true all over China, there are just so many people its unbelievable. The city of Nanjing has a long historical heritage, having twice been the nation's capital, one of which was during the famous Ming dynasty. We spent only one day there which was spent ... read more
October 3rd 2006
I arrived in Beijing after taking the overnight train from Mongolia and took another overnight train down to Shanghai. The size of both cities was really overwhelming. I remember that on the approach to Beijing on the train we were in the city for several hours before we actually got to the city centre. It was the Chinese National week and both cities were totally crammed with chinese tourists. My first impression of Shanghai was that it is very modern and felt like a western city. The hotel was conveniently located about 1 minute away from the main shopping street called Nanjing Street which was like Times Square, fast paced and full of neon lights. For the first few days in Shangahi it was great to immerse myself in the comfort of shopping malls and Starbucks. ... read more
September 22nd 2006
After leaving the horses we were back on our trusty old camper van to endure another long day on the bumpy roads. We headed out of the valley and towards the ancient capital Kharakorum. This city was the capital when Gengis Khan was in power. Upon arrival we visited his palace grounds and walked around the city. We came across a European Cafe and were delighted to be able to eat french fries and drink coffee. We met some other travellers and spent the whole evening in the cafe. At one point some local musicians came in for a drink having finished a performance in another part of town and together with Miguel, the argentinian from our group who played the drums, they all played an impromtu set with their traditional instruments. The final day of ... read more
September 19th 2006
After leaving the sand dunes we spent a two days travelling north in the van to get to the Orkhon Valley. The valley was really picturesque and we camped there for one night. A river ran through the valley at the bottom of a gorge which we climbed into. The water was really cold so we couldn't go in it but we walked along the river and through a woodland area to a waterfall. In the evening we lit a camp fire and a local musician came and played music for us on some of the traditional mongolian instruments. He even did the throatsinging which I got a recording of. After one night we packed up some of our things and went by horseback for 3 days. We were given traditional ropes to wear called 'Deels' ... read more
September 18th 2006
On day 3 of the trip we started to drive north again from the desert and went to look at the sand dunes at Khongoryn Els. They were really spectacular but bloody hard work trying to climb up it, every time you take a step you just sink back down again, then half up the winds got really high and I couldn't see a thing. But after a hour I finally got to the top and the view was totally worth it. And the best bit was running down which took all of about 3 minutes. In the evening we arranged to go for a camel trek around the dunes.... read more
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