Blogs from Forbidden City, Beijing, China, Asia - page 21

Ni hao world ... How r u doing out there in your remote places ? We hope the spring is spoiling you with the first warm sunbeams. If you're still curious about how we're doing on our trip and what happened over the past days, take a short break, sit back and listen for the breaking news from Asia. Nepal definitely impressed us a lot with its warm and mystic charme, the open-hearted people, its various flavours, roots, traditions and certainly the stunning nature. We always tried to give our maximum respect and jumped at almost all opportunities which this amazing playground has to offer. After some serious Rafting action in the Bote Khosi river and Canyoning (Abseiling) in the rocks and waterfalls of the highlands near Tibet, we set off for a 7 days trekking ... read more

Our Tour Group Several of you have asked about our tour group. There are four bus loads of us on this Collette Vacation. We have people from Texas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and of course Pittsburgh and Baltimore. One of our tour mates is a lovely lady named Fran. Fran is an older lady (let's say she would love Lawrence Welk), who has traveled alot. She was enthralling us with her recent adventures to Alaska. She mentioned at dinner last night that the high school that she taught at in Ohio called Wilton Woods was here in China performing several choral concerts around the country. She talked about how much she would love to see them. We at the table didn't think more about this because China is a big country and what's the ... read more

Or: Without doubt, things are big here Today, we sightsaw. Our ambitious schedule included Tian'Anmen Square in the morning, then the Forbidden City, then the City Planning Museum, then the Temple of Heaven. Lunch at the Wahaha restaurant and a Peking Duck (err, Beijing Duck) dinner. We killed the visit to the freshwater pearl factory (?). If you think that sounds ambitious, you should try it with a five year old whose body clock is off by 12 hours. I would say that I would never do something like this again, but tomorrow we are going to see the Great Wall, then Olympic venues, then a cloissone factory and a banquest dinner. If you think this is insane, yes. But after the 14 hour flight, everything seems possible. Tian'Anmen Square is huge. It is the "largest ... read more

Hong Kong Blog Just had 4 days in HK and feel knackered. It is a full on city and everything concentrated, nothing diluted. As space is short the city seems to exist on the vertical. There are shops, stalls and markets at ground level, cars, trams and buses at ground level up to level 3 on suspended roads, restaurants from basements through ground to level 6 (in our hotel) level 11-13 in the shopping mall next to us and upwards in the posh hotels. Our room was on the 28th floor and we looked up vertically to see the top of the building next to us. Regarding shopping Carol said she would be sick if she saw another Chanel shop - there is every luxury brand here - including at least 4 shops solely selling Rolex ... read more

Last weekend was my first major side-trip since I have been in China. My roommate Aaron and I undertook the massive task of seeing the sights of Beijing in a mere three days. Our plan was to take a sleeper train up there on Thursday night so that we could arrive by Friday morning and spend all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday sightseeing then return by sleeper train on Sunday night and arrive back in Changzhou in time for our classes on Monday. The first part of the plan went well. Our sleeper train ride on Friday night was long, but we made it to Beijing by about 9:00 in the morning and headed straight to Tiannamen Square. We got ripped off on the taxi ride over, but otherwise we arrived safe and sound. Tiannamen Square ... read more