Blogs from Beijing, China, Asia - page 11

Arrived in China later than expected, so had to hot foot it to our hotel to meet our tour group! We followed all the instructions given to us on how to get from the airport to the hotel via taxi, but somehow must have done something wrong. So much so we ended up in a 16 seater minibus- to ourselves!!! The giggles soon dissipated due to the crazy nature of the taxi drivers driving and other Chinese road users! Now we have had some crazy taxis before but I feel this may have taken the biscuit. But still we arrived checked in, met the group and had dinner. The next day it was up early for a guided tour of Tiananmen Square, the forbidden city and the dream tower! This day was entertaining for a few ... read more

The beginning of a another great adventure.... This trip would prove to be a bit different from our previous excursions; a sizable chunk of it would be with an organized tour which we typically don't do, and geographically this would be all over the proverbial map and returning to a couple of previous destinations...starting here in Beijing, then taking a 40 hour train ride west to Tibet (okay, still technically China but I cannot call it other than Tibet), finishing the tour in Kathmandu Nepal, hopping over to Bangkok Thailand and finally some R&R on the tiny island of Ko Samet three hours or so south of Bangkok...yep, a little bit of everything... The focus of this trip was really Tibet, a land both K and I had long had a desire to visit...but with the ... read more

I think it's fair to say that Paul and I were both a little nervous about our trip to China. Despite good intentions our Mandarin was below the most basic level which isn't great since the language barrier is the single biggest issue for foreigner travellers in China. That coupled with the expected cultural differences left us both a tad apprehensive. The Lonely Planet's advice for first time travellers to China is to be patient and understand that lots of things which we take for granted, like orderly queues and personal space may not exist. As another website abruptly put it, forget everything your mother ever taught you about table manners, waiting your turn and spitting. This information is undoubtedly sound but leaves you expecting the worse and wondering why you made the crazy decision to ... read more

Geo: 39.9165, 116.391In our final day in Beijing we had two good stops. The first stop was the Forbidden City. Considered one of the man-made wonders of the world (along with the Great Wall), it's considered the largest palatial palace in the world. It is huge. Building after building cover 720,000 square meters. The last stop was Tian'anmen square. The site of the student protests in the 80's. Remember the picture of the tank and the student daring it run him over? That was here. It's the world's largest city square in the world. The Chinese like to make everything on a grand scale. Our weather was very good except for the smog. Again a very bad day for people with breathing problems as you can see in many of the pictures at the square. Returned ... read more

The Big Adventure Day 1 So the time finally came for me to have to say goodbye to all of my lovely students in Yantai. It was quite sad knowing i will likely never see them again when i was just getting to understand all of their individual personalities all i can hope for now is that they remember me fondly. I know at least my 2B class will remember me as crazy because they told me so but I'm no more crazy than them. Packing up my room with great difficulty how on earth did i get all of this stuff out of this case because it definitely ain't fitting back in! I ended up giving 3 bags of stuff to another teacher who is very kindly taking it back to the UK for me ... read more