Blogs from China, Asia - page 2309

Have my midterms right now and I think I might be failing all four of them...even the instructions are in chinese which doesn't make it easier. But I've heard that nothing really happens if you fail apart from that you need a really high percentage on the next exam to pass. Oh well... The exams a divided into three days and now I only have the speaking test left. Gonna meet my language partner tonight and practise because I really need it. My pronunciation is horrible it seems like. Otherwise I'm spending tons of time in a coffeshop called Cava that is really nice but a bit expensive. We are there at least three hours a day and our record is ten hours straight... I go there to study and usually Dan comes along to practise ... read more

we stumbled across this factory and found it to be pretty educational..some pix on the process of making the silk blankets...which is supposed to be cool in summer and warm in winter... http://www.1st-silk.com/index.htm hey i'm not advertising for them..but thot it is good to share with u:) ... read more

Arriving in China was cool. Always going to be the highlight of our trip, it was nice to reach here at last. First stop was Kunming, which although there wasnt much to do, was a nice with a friendly atmosphere, and a good place to get our first taste of chinese life and the delicious chinese dumplings! A couple of days spent, then on to Dali. Dali is a purposely built tourist town (by the governement) and is very nice and pretty with good chinese architecture, though it feels slightly like disney china. Another couple of days here spent mostly shopping for the warm clothes needed for our himalaya expidition. Similar to Dali, was Lijiang, only bigger. Again very pretty, we shopped again and saw an ethnic minority show/dance which was a bit dodgy. Unfortunately we ... read more

The actual reason for my stopover in Xi'an was the nearby Tomb of Qin Shi Huang. But the town itself was really nice, too. I arrived on the train from Beijing and just in front of the train station I was standing next to the old city wall. The whole city is structure very well inside this rectangular shaped city wall and around the central square with the old bell tower. It was in Xi'an that I discovered a Chinese basement hotel the first time. It's basically what the name tells you, the rooms are on floor -1. It's not so bad as one could imagine, and it's cheap. In my nice basement dorm room I meet Raul from Spain. The next couple of days we traveld together which was good fun.... read more

31.10.05 - Qiaotao From Lijiang we travelled north about 80km to Qiaotao, the gateway to the world's deepest gorge - otherwise known as Tiger leaping Gorge after an old fable of the tiger escaping hunters by jumping from one side to another! It is approx 13,000 feet deep and China's longest river, the Yangtze, flows through the centre. There are 2 roads along the gorge, the low road designed for tours and people who want to take a day trip to see the gorge and the high road up in the Haba mountains for stupid people like us who decide to trek along the top! It's a 2 day hike but we started late on the first day so spread it over 3 days, stopping many times along the way to marvel at the spectacular scenery. ... read more