Traveling Pez

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 ... read more

DAY 7 - An early start today for our flight to Xi'an, home town of our guide, Grace. We arrived and began with a tour of Xi'an City Wall. Xi'an is the ancient capital of China and the wall was required to protect the inner city residents. A moat is being reconstructed around the wall. Our hotel for tonight is amazing, LanXi International Hotel, can't complain about the level of service here. After dinner we jumped on our coach for a nighlights tour of Xi'an, including a stroll through the pedestrian mall. As it is a very important weekend here, Memorial Public Holiday, all the women, from young ages around 13 or so up to late 20's, dress in national costumes and are very proud of doing so. A massive light display throughout the streets of ... read more

Hello Everyone, Welcome to our Glories of China tour of 2019. The trip started off with a cancelled flight on Saturday night, arriving back home at 3am Sunday morning, back to airport for 3pm flight Sunday arvo. Into Hong Kong at 10pm and Cathay Pacific had arranged a brilliant hotel room, within the airport for the night. On our connecting flight to Shanghai at 7.30am Monday, arriving at 10am. Our tour guide, Grace had arranged for us to be picked up and although we missed the first part of Day 1, we were taken straight to our lunch venue, a magnificent floating restaurant on the Huangpu River. Our tour group is made up of Aussie's from Melbourne, Perth, Newcastle and of course Brisbane. We have another local guide, whose name is also Grace, so we have ... read more

Day 25 - Sitting in a saloon 48 State Taver, Page Arizona, after a long hot day on the road. Jac & Snapper found this gem on our 2016 trip. A couple of Porter Ales down, after Nifty wore me down on trying one (damn nice by the way), a plate of Wings with BBQ Bourbon sauce, Ranch on the side, now a Makers Mark on the rocks, our brilliant bartender, Chris - 'Have you got any Aussie music mate', Yep tell me what you like, Have you got 'Men at Work?' Yep, here ya go!' So here we are - sitting in a bar in Page, Arizona, listening to Men at Work, while eating Wings & drinking bourbon! Fantastic, I say! After leaving Kanab, a short detour to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, ... read more

Day 19 - Awoke to cloudy skies and very windy, with rain forecast for today from Loveland to Colorado Springs. We hit the I25 and sat on 75mph, around Denver and onto Colorado Springs to see The Garden of the Gods. What a 'Slappin' Horses' moment (only a couple of you will get this!), absolutely amazing landscape, similar to Sedona on a smaller scale. Being a Sunday there were massive crowds out climbing on the rocks. We stopped for a few photos and parked in the bus zone, where a National Parks Office (only a young fella) came up to me with ticket book in hand, he'd already booked a half a dozen cars for parking illegally. So the conversation went along the lines of - Sorry Mate, we're just about to leave, am I getting ... read more