I had arrived in Fuzhou the previous evening and since it had been late, just headed to my hotel. I had no intention of visiting Fuzhou, which is the provincial capital of Fujian province, but the lack of train tickets available because of the New Year holiday meant it was necessary. I had a day to explore so made some tentative plans of what I could see and do in that time. Breakfast was included in my hotel. I got down to the breakfast room just before the mad rush. The breakfast was pretty crappy, normally I like traditional style Chinese breakfasts, but everything here was just so bland. I was glad that I had coffee in my room as there was none on offer. After checking out and leaving my bag in storage, I headed ... read more

For my last day in Xiamen, I decided to head to the botanical gardens. There area few entrances, and I decided to head to the main one, which meant I went back through the train tunnel that I'd had a look around the day before. From the tunnel, it was about further 10 minutes walk to the gardens. There were about a million people there. The queues for the ticket office were pretty long, but one seemed to be a lot shorter than the others so I joined that and got my ticket fairly quickly. I headed inside, the botanical gardens are massive and I decided to try and see as much as I can. I took a random path that didn't really lead to anywhere special, but there were some nice views of the city ... read more

I left things rather late in planning for my Chinese New Year holiday. I had very limited options as my passport was at the immigration office, meaning that I could only travel by train. Since it was New Year, most of the trains were fully booked. I had a couple of option head north to Shandong province to visit a couple of places I really wanted to go to there, or head South to Xiamen and the warmer weather. My friends advised !e to head south and I'm glad I headed their advice. I had arrived in Xiamen the previous evening and was so happy that the weather wasn't cold. I woke up to an overcast but warm day and after enjoying breakfast al fresco in the hostel's courtyard, I set off to explore. My map ... read more

The hostel provided a free breakfast, which I helped myself to. When reading reviews of the place online, I loved how some people were moaning about how basic the breakfast was. It's a hostel, it is cheap, be thankful you are getting free food at all people. Tea, toast and cereal filled me up nicely and set off to explore some more of Wroclaw. I had decided to head over to Cathedral Island and explore some of the surrounding midtown section of the city. I headed up through the Old Town, near the Town Hall, but up a different street that I hadn't explored the previous day. Once again, the style of the buildings reminded me a lot of those I had seen in South East Germany. I saw the former St. Joseph boarding school, which ... read more

I had booked a day trip to Abu Dhabi as I wanted to visit another Emirate. I hadn't been too impressed when making my booking that they charged more for a single booking, feels a bit shady that they want to discriminate against solo travellers. Also when they sent the instructions to get to the departure point, it was bloody miles away. Also the instructions were only suitable for those driving or taking a cab, not great those of us that use public transport. Anyway, I figured out a route and took the subway. Once I exited the station, I used the maps on my phone to locate the hotel. Well that was a big mistake as it had the location in the wrong place and I ended up walking along the wrong side of the ... read more