CHINA 2019 - TOUR ENDS, WORK BEGINS!

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After a long Friday, leaving our Beijing hotel at 4am, Angela left for her flight home via Hong Kong on time at 8am. I, on the other hand, suffered a 2 hour delay on my flight to Guangzhou, eventually departing at 10.45am. Arriving at the President Hotel by taxi after my driver failed to show, a miserable drizzly day, and now sitting in my room on a rainy Saturday morning after catching up on much needed sleep, I'm slightly disappointed that our magical Glories of China Tour has ended.

From seeing the magical sights of Shanghai, the Silk Factory, Huangpu River cruise, The Bund, Shanghai Museum & Zhujiajiao (old water town) to Guilin, the Li River cruise, Yangshuo and the local village, the Pearl Factory, Cormorant Fishing to Xi'an and the Terracotta Warriors, the Xi'an Ancient City Wall & onward to Beijing on the VFT, Hutongs, Great Wall, Jade Factory, Forbidden City and much more, it was a magnificent tour. We cannot speak highly enough of our National Guide, Grace Gao, who with her team of local guides, Grace #2, John, James & Renny, went out of their way to ensure we wanted for nothing. She was our Amazing Grace! All 4' 8" of her!

Having only seen the work & factory side of China till now, being able to see the Chinese people in their everyday activities opened my eyes to the other side. Yes, some...no, make that many of them are poor in a financial sense, but they are rich in the way they see life, they are a happy people, content to go about their everyday routine, they are a very proud people, proud of their heritage, history & surprisingly, their government. They are more than happy to have a photo taken, and some who have not seen Westerners, are keen to take your photo. Angela & Donna, who both have long hair, red in Donna's case, were regularly targeted for photos with the locals.

And make no mistake, it is a busy place no matter where you are, there are people and traffic everywhere, no escaping it!

I hope you have enjoyed the stories and images on this blog. This is the last post from China, so I'll leave you with some final images of our fantastic tour with a mob of great fun-loving Aussies!

Regards,

Pez

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