Lake of a Thousand Islands

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Monique currently works as a travel writer in Beijing, China.

Lake of a Thousand Islands:

Of all the starving artists and "beijing bums" in the "Wu" of Beijing, Monique was selected to write a travel book about a place she'd never even heard of: the Lake of a Thousand Islands.

She spent a whirlwind, all-expenses-paid 10 days at the lake, staying at a five-star resort and attending banquet upon banquet. Accompanied by an official government escort, she got to go places usually off limits to foreigners and lots of genuine "meet and greets" and usually taboo photo ops with the local villagers. As if that wasn't enough, she came back to Beijing 5-kgs lighter and with a great tan! (Unfortunately this situation quickly reversed itself...)

While she was gone, her hubby Clint survived on a rotation of three Chinese dishes and rice at his local Chinese restaurant. This experience gave him the incentive he needed to start learning "survival" Chinese - now he knows how to order more dishes than Monique!

When Monique returned from the Lake of a Thousand Islands, she had to finish her write-up of her experiences in a coherent, professional format and collate all of her 500 photos within just one month (including final editing!). Much easier said than done, especially given the fact that she had already agreed to another commitment before the trip, meaning that when she got back she had to work almost 12-hour days and then come home and write until the early hours of the morning - four weeks with just a few hours sleep every night! Needless to say, she got the book finished, but almost had a mental breakdown in the process...

The book was designed and printed in a matter of weeks, just in time for the Lake of a Thousand Islands Press Conference in Beijing. Monique attended a book signing, gave a talk to the press about her experiences (of course, omitting the bad parts) and was revered as an honoured guest. To this day, she still isn't quite sure why - considering she isn't actually a famous author - and felt rather pleased with herself until she discovered a horrific typo (that happened during the design process) on pg13. Clint loved her anyway.

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Photos

The Lake of a Thousand Islands
The beautiful panorama of the Lake of a Thousand Islands

My first published book!
My first published book - on the Lake of a Thousand Islands, China.

Catch of the Day
Net Fishing - Lake of a Thousand Island Style!

Hanging with the Crew
Mo on the road with the CCTV documentary camera crew

Village Life
Mo hangs out with some local villagers and feels very BIG

Comments

[Jan Mauck]

fellow tourist
We were just there last weekend, We are teachers in Jinhua and took a three day trip by bus. The road was very bumpy, but ok. We stayed at the Phoenix Vacation Resort. The four of us were the only guests. It was very strange. The weather was cold, but the scenery of the area was beautiful. Would love to return when the weather is beter. The highlight of the trip was a trip by launch to an island inhabited by wild monkeys.