Hello everyone, With the Olympics approaching in China, I anticipate more people will be reading this blog. I want to provide some info one last time before I close out this blog. I call this the "must read" post, because it deals with something most travelers may have with them: portable electronic devices. In the hotels in China, it seemed there was about a 50/50 chance that the electrical outlets worked properly. But even in the better hotels I stayed at during my 6 weeks in China, I was VERY glad I had a few basic pieces of gear with me. [View Full Entry]

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I am home. Since returning, I have gotten some emails about where I stayed in Beijing and how to get around, so I decided to post some helpful information for future Beijiing travellers. The Shuttle bus pictures are two sides of a brochure that can take you from the airport to the cool part of Beijing, near Tiananmen square and stuff. The GOTOhotel pictures are the brochure of the hotel I stayed at... highly recommended. 260 yuan per night (with a deposit of several days lodging up front) and it has maid service, a toilet and shower and high speed internet [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone... we arrived in Beijing today, got checked into our hotel that Miao's friend booked for us, and it is awesome!!! The hotel is a bit on the expensive side for Beijing (260 Yuan = $35) but it is in a great location, and within walking distance of Tiananmen Square. It also has free internet in every room, so I am using my laptop to make this blog entry. Miao's friend has really been a lifesaver, she booked us this great hotel, and bought our train tickets to Taiyuan. To repay the favor, we took her out to dinner at [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everybody, can't talk long. I am in Fuxin with Miao and her parents. We are staying in their apartment and we have basically been eating every lunch and dinner with various relatives... it has been very interesting. They have been very gracious to me and treat me very well. It is really nice in this city. It is small, but very populated. For the blog, I have pictures only this week, as I have been very busy with social commitments. I did film a short 10-second video for a Gmail contest on YouTube at a big square in this city [View Full Entry]

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In the city of Shenyang, NEW VIDEO This past weekend (fri and sat night) Miao and I stayed in Shenyang, the captial of Liaoning province. We didn't come to Shenyang specifically to visit the city, but rather because it is on the way to Miao's hometown and she has two life-long friends that live in the city. I arrived in the city sort with pretty neutral expectations. Dalian is a beautiful coastal city, whereas Shenyang is in the middle of the province and not really famous in the way Dalian is. It has 7.5 million people, and seems to go for [View Full Entry]

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Last Day in Dalian Today Miao and I will be packing up our luggage and getting ready to leave. Friday morning we get on the train and head up to Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning province. We will be in Shenyang for two days, then take another train to Miao's hometown of Fuxin where we will stay all next week. I am very excited about this second half of the trip. I will get to spend some time in the countryside, as well as see Beijing and Tiananmen Square. We scratched the plans to see the Great Wall, though, which [View Full Entry]

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UPDATE ON MY TRAVEL BLOG plus a NEW VIDEO!!! Hi everyone, First, just want to let you know that travelblog.org suffered a memory failure, and the guy (yes, the ONE guy) that runs travelblog.org did not properly have his backup mechanisms in place, so all of my former travel blogs have been wiped out. I am back blogging here though, because while this site was down I investigated the alternatives and they all suck. So here we are... THE GOOD NEWS IS, Since I use YOUTUBE to host/broadcast my videos, the only content I lost was the text of my blogs [View Full Entry]

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My Travels in China Bill ConradNEW VIDEO!!! "Dry Run Video" for the Dalian BEER FESTIVAL!!! All of my videos up until now has just been me editing and dressing up raw, 1st-person footage. For the next part of my trip, I want to include some "reporter on the scene" type of videos, where I "cover" aspects of China or certain events... more like what you would see on a travel channel on cable. Enter sidekick Miao, who has had so much fun helping me make my other videos that she has volunteered to be my new camera person here, allowing [View Full Entry]

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Here is the movie of my class field trip. My Chinese class took a field trip on Friday to Dalian's Labor Park. Made a video of the day. It's about 13 minutes long, and it shows the beauty of the park and all the different things people go to the park to do. Met some Americans from Missouri that had lived in Dalian for 5 months or so, and they love it here. They are at the end of the movie. [View Full Entry]

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Saturday July 14, 6:30 am. *****click here to see my new YouTube video from Dalian***** First full day in Dalian is history. We started out going to the free breakfast at our hotel. It was not what I expected. Lots of green salty vegetables, a few of which were, according to my friend Miao, "from the sea." Miao seemed to enjoy her breakfast, as did the other 75 people that were waiting for the chow bell to strike at 7am. Me? I ate a few pieces of "cake" that was actually quite delicious (think jiffy cake with no frosting) and [View Full Entry]

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