Beijing After checking in at the hotel, which has an English speaking staff member very helpful who gave us two codes for wifi, we went to our room and Chilax, took a warm and long shower ( actually it wasn't warm and we had to turn on the sink water so that the hot water would turn on. After about 10 minutes it finally got hot so we could shower. Cleaned and rested we headed out to get some good and real food. We settled for the Hines restaurant of the hotel and ate our favorite honest dishes: dou jiao, jiao zi, some stir fried garlic chicken and what I thought was delicious fried pumpkin. Everything was good except for he pumpkin fries and there were a lot of them, and I felt bad about not ... read more

Gubei Kou to Jingahialong Day 2 We woke up around 7:00 AM and the Chinese couple was already up and getting ready to leave . We hurried up and got out of the tent to ask them for directions to Jinshialing. They were very helpful and said the path at the end of the last tower would lead to Jinsialing and they would put a black arrow along the way for us to follow. They left and we made breakfast and packed up and around 9:30 we were ready for our hike. We got to the starting point of the trail fairy quickly. It was a narrowed, dirt, bumpy trail along the side of the mountain. We walked on it for about an hour until we reached a flat corn field. There we started to realize ... read more

Gubei Kou day hike Tuesday arrived with a thunderstorm, wind and cold weather. We woke up around 6 AM due to the wind blowing cold and the rain drops on our tent's roof. We waited a bit util the rain slowed down a bit and when not did we quickly grabbed the tent and put it down under the tower. We were thankful this tower had shelter. We grabbed our backpacks and cooking utensils as well and put them also under the tower. We started to cook a warm oatmeal breakfast and black tea to warm up a bit and in the mean time read and chilled while the rain passed. After breakfast we were very cold and so we took a mid morning nap ( in the tent) until about 10 AM. We woke up ... read more

Sleeper train to Beijing, bus and taxi to Joan Kou and hike up to Jian Kou the wild wall section Our October holiday started on Saturday September 27. We took a qingguai ride from Kaifaqu to Houyan station ( near Dalian) and then a 3-wheeled crappy taxi to the DLC new train station were supposedly our train to Beijing would leave from. When we entered the station, which looked very clean and modern, the security guard told us we needed to go to the DLC railway station, ahhhh panic attack we only had about 1 hour to get there! After leaving behind a couple of taxis who were harassing us and wanting yibai (100rmb) for a short ride we finally got a taxi for 40 rmb, but he took his time to try and get more ... read more

Saturday July 13 Garibaldi Lake Region: Whistler. Difficulty: Intermediate. Time: 5 hours. Distance: 18km. Elevation Gain: 820 meters. Season: July - October. Camping: Yes. Dog Friendly: No. Public Transit: No. Approx. 1 hour 45 minutes from Vancouver Garibaldi Lake is a turquoise-coloured alpine lake in British Columbia, url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca... read more