After a rushed trip to the airport to see Martin on his flight back to Australia via Hongkong I had the afternoon to hang around in Beijing prior to my train back to Jinan. Subway loop line 2 takes you to Dongzhimen, and then transfer to the airport express line, easy to follow with trains every minute or so on the subway and every ten minutes or so on the airport express line. Quick Starbucks coffee in the arrival hall and I was ready to face the world. Too much to see and so little time; it was a toss-up between Forbidden Palace, Olympic park and Beijing zoo and the zoo won. Beautiful clear blue skies and winter sunshine made this a great choice. After rain and snow the smog stays away for a couple of ... read more

After my 2 periods of teaching we got the 10-30am bus back to the city campus and had the bus driver stop at the Shandong museum which is near the Olympic Park complex. From the city you can take a 115 bus from the corner of LiShan Lu and JingShi Lu, east along Jing Shi for quite a long way, until you come to a very imposing domed building on the left hand side just before the Olympic Park complex. There are 3 floors of exhibits, all beautifully presented, innovative lighting and display techniques, easy to understand floor layout, lifts, escalators and staff galore. A café, clean toilets and free entry make this a must see when you visit Jinan. There are halls which each have a speciality such as Ming Dynasty, Han Dynasty, Calligraphy, Prehistoric, ... read more

This Friday we headed off from Jinan to QingDao. We had booked tickets through a train ticket agency for Friday morning leaving at 8-45am from Jinan East station on a D train. We had real trouble flagging a taxi down, it took about 10 minutes and we were going to be cutting it fine. We pulled into the car park of the station and I reminded Martin to get his passport out, which is when he realised he had left it in the apartment. You can’t get on a train without an ID card or passport nor can a foreigner stay at a hotel or hostel without one. So much to the bemusement of the taxi driver and initially wondering what the hell we were doing we asked him to take us back to the apartment. ... read more

With only 2 lessons to teach today we headed off after lunch to find cold and flu medication, train tickets and Thousand Buddha Mountain. Miming a sore throat and a cough plus with the help of the handy phrase book, we got something that seemed right, with a mimed instruction on when and how to take it all. Train tickets were easy; the train ticket agency is brilliant and worth the Y5 extra per person per ticket with our weekend trip to and from QingDao all booked and paid for with staff really willing to get us train tickets that suited us. Going via Jinan East station and coming back into Jinan Main train station on D train, so a journey of 2.5 hours each way. Next stop BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) No 3 and up ... read more

Today was our day to see the wall and we were up and off at 8am to do the section called Ba Da Ling ( 8 prominent peaks) on our own. Stocked up on water and snacks and headed for Qianmen station (Dong Cheng district) and the subway loop line 2. Take this line until you get to Xuanwumen station and transfer to line 4 Take this line to Xizhimen and get off here at Exit A and head off to Beijing North train station. It's well signed. You will arrive at the station which has underground ticketing,do not go to this office, head up to the ground and go into the ticket office on the surface. Just say Ba da ling and someone will point you where you have to go next. You need to ... read more