I made it down to breakfast slightly earlier. There was a bit more choice and while it was nice to see new things on offer, I was a little disappointed some of the offerings I had enjoyed the day before weren't there. I loaded up my first plate with a rather large amount of stir fried greens, a boiled egg, sausage, youtiao (fried dough stick), and some fried veggie dumplings. The sausage was a cheapie processed one so pretty meh. The dumplings, boiled egg and youtiao were good, but the best bit was the stir fried greens. So tasty. As much as I like eating traditional Chinese breakfast food, I enjoy eating what is in my opinion non traditional foods too. I am definitely not one of those people believe certain foods have to be eaten ... read more

Up and off to Honghaiwan (红海湾), which means Red Bay in English. Quite the pretty name. I had originally wanted to stay in this area, but couldn't find out if the hotel I wanted to stay at accepted foreigners and so decided to make my life easier and stay near the train station as I was only in Shanwei for two nights and didn't want to have to schlepp too far with all my stuff. I miss travelling light. Hopefully, I can correct that for my next trip. I first took the bus to the train station, which was quick as I didn't have to wait long and the journey is really quick too. Here I had to change buses to the 116, which I found no problem. The river was on the bus taking a ... read more

My final day in Huizhou. I felt like I had seen pretty much all there was to see by the end of yesterday, apart from one section of the lake. So after a leisurely start to the day, I headed off to take a look around that part. I walked back through Fengzhu Park taking pictures of some things I had missed the day before because I had been a bit too tired by that point. The stone boat reminded me of the Summer Palace in Beijing, which is one of my favourite places to go in Beijing. I also spent more time photographing the lotus flowers, they never fail to impress me. When I got to the other side of the lake, I took the path in the opposite direction to the one I had ... read more

Finally, off to visit Huizhou, a smaller city that is close to Shenzhen. Even though Huizhou is really close getting there is a bit of a pain in the backside. I opted for the slower cheaper route of subway and bus. Subway was nice and simple just ride it to the end of line 3 and then transfer to the bus. Although the bus took just over 2 hours and wasn’t the most comfortable as it was just a regular bus, not a fancy coach or anything, it was actually less faff than getting the train and having to go through all the security and ID checks. It was also a bargainous 9 RMB. China isn’t too cheap any more but there are still some good deals about. The journey was uneventful and I just watched ... read more

23rd Jun: I think I must have woken everyone in the guesthouse up by going to the bathroom at 5 am. The perks of a communal bathroom and old, heavy doors that make a lot of noise when you open them. I went back to sleep for a bit and was woken again by the rain pouring down outside. I hoped that it was just a short shower and not last all day as I had planned to go to the beach. Once up and sorted, my first stop was breakfast. I headed to the breakfast place I'd frequented last time for ease. It was a lot quieter than last time. I ordered a bit of a random combination of sweet soymilk, fried egg and Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings). And who says only English food is beige, ... read more