Breakfast, the most important meal of the day according to some and it is definitely an important meal in Wuhan. According to my friend, who lives here locals typically eat out for breakfast and even if they eat at home they don't prepare it themselves. Given the amount of restaurants and stalls selling breakfast, I could well believe it. After grabbing a quick coffee, we headed to Jiqing street about a 5-10 minute walk from where I was staying, which was lined with restaurants. I was excited to try 热干面 (reganmian), which translates to hot dry noodles. This dish is one of Wuhan's most famous and it sounded perfect for me as I like noodles, but not noodle soup. The restaurant we went to was called Cai Lin-Kee (蔡林记) and is a pretty popular place. The ... read more

While I was researching my trip to Huangshan, I came across some information about the two UNESCO World Heritage site, Hongcun and Xidi that are located in Anhui province and are pretty close to Huangshan. I decided after my trip to Huangshan that I would stay in Tunxi and use it as a base for getting to the villages. I had read online that a lot of people tended to visit both villages in one day due to their proximity to each other, but I decided to go at a slower pace and visit one each day. I decided to visit Hongcun first as it is the largest of the two villages and also the furthest away. I headed to the bus station and while waiting in the queue to by a ticket I heard a ... read more

It was a late start that morning as we didn't leave until about 11 am. I was still tired though, as I had gotten up earlyish to say bye to the people who were leaving over breakfast. I was looking forward to today as we were getting out of Pyongyang and heading to another town. Also, the group was now a lot smaller. We drove through some very nice parts of Pyongyang. Everything looked brand new and immaculately kept. It didn't take too long for us to reach our first stop, which was Mangyeongdae, the birthplace of Kim Il Sung. What I found a little strange about this place was that as the bus pulled into the carpark, there was a funfair there, too. I found it weird as the North Koreans revere their leaders so ... read more

It was an earlier start today because we had another big planned. After breakfast in the delightfully pink room again, we headed out to the tour bus. Since we would be visiting some very important sights in Pyongyang today, we had to be well dressed, no jeans, trainers or just generally looking like plebs, we all had to be suited and booted. We drove to Kumsusan Palace of the Sun and were briefed on the dos and donts. We headed into the waiting room where we sat around for about twenty minutes. There were lots of magazines about North Korea on the tables, so I had a look through some of those. More people arrived and then we were led out towards the main building. After going through security, we were made to line up in ... read more

1st Oct: North Korea, some where that I have wanted to travel to for a long time and I am finally getting round to doing it. It is a quite a difficult place to travel, although the visa process was a lot easier than that of China, as you have to be part of a tour, either a group tour or a private one. There is no freedom to go where you please and everything is strictly controlled. I headed to a hotel in Beijing for my pre departure meeting and to meet with the Western guides from the tour company I was using. Getting out of the subway station at Beijing Station was madness. Since it was the start of the National Day holiday, there were about a million people about. I was glad to ... read more