Nanshan Museum had been on my radar for a while, but when I tried to get tickets in Covid times, there were never any available. Now that's over it was super easy to reserve a spot on the museum's WeChat mini programme. The museum was easy to access as it was about a ten minute walk in a straight line from the subway station. I scanned my ticket at the entrance and was free to wander the museum. I don't really know too much about this area of Shenzhen apart from it is central and pretty rich. The museum had both permanent and temporary exhibits, so I started with permanent ones. I decided to work through them chronologically so started with 'Ancient Nanshan'. I passed a gorgeous wooden folding screen with gold lacquer work as I ... read more

I spent the second part of my lunar new year holiday in Hubei visiting friends. Since all Covid restrictions had been lifted recently it was still a novelty to be able to travel hassle free. However, this trip didn't go as planned but that due to my Chinese friends lack of planning and last minute changes rather than any major events. I had intended to spend all my time in Wuhan but ended up spending the majority of it in Huangshi, a smaller city nearby that is my friend's hometown. I think Huangshi's only claim to fame is that it was the second or third city to get shut down back in January 2020 when Covid started becoming more prominent. Anyway, I've broke the trip into a few different sections. Transport: I flew to Wuhan with ... read more

Another day, another beach. I'd woken up around seven but had a slow start as I was in relax mode. I ordered some breakfast and decided to order something different today. I got cheung fun (rice rolls), youtiao and soymilk. So different but not too different as I had my staples of youtiao and soymilk. In all the years, I have lived and travelled in China, I have never had Cheung Fun. I don't know why as they do look good, but something else always looks better so I never order them. I did enjoy the cheung fun, but I didn't really like the dipping sauce that you have to pour over them. I think it is some kind of seasoned soy sauce. Once sorted, I took the bus to Haiyue Plaza as today I was ... read more

I must have had too much caffeine yesterday as I couldn't get to sleep the previous evening. So I ended up having a lazy morning scoffing some instant noodles and catching up on some TV. I have to say the internet and ease of using my VPN is really good in Sanya. I think it's because pre-Covid, China was trying to tout Sanya to international tourists and they used to get a lot of Russian visitors there. Once sorted, I headed out to the bus stop and took the bus in the opposite direction to yesterday. This time to Dadonghai Beach. The journey was a bit quicker than yesterday's but not by much. Also since the bus was heading into the more centralised part of Sanya, it was pretty busy. The bus also followed part of ... read more

A proper trip in China. Now that Covid is done and dusted travelling has gone back to normal and I am happy to be able to leave Shenzhen for my Spring Festival break. I had chosen Sanya on Hainan island simply because it was warm. Shenzhen had been pretty cold for the past month or so and I needed some warmth in my bones. Getting to the airport was quick and easy thanks to the subway. The airport wasn’t too busy which was nice. I made my way to check-in, tried to use the machine was given an error notice after getting so far, I presume it was because I was a foreigner and headed to the counter to check in. That was nice and simple, no codes, no Covid test results, just ID and my ... read more