China
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![Goodbye China]()
Zai Jian China!
Goodbye China China is not a developing nation, it’s developed. And we all might understand soon just how developed they are. I’ve never met a people who are more determined to make an impression on the world than these folks.
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![Tiger Leaping Gorge]()
Things We Love(d) About China
Tiger Leaping Gorge There’s no denying it. We’ve enjoyed China. We didn’t fall in love with the big cities of the east coast, but the western and southwestern provinces are spectacular – filled with stunning scenery and diverse people.
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![Be Like Water]()
Hong Kong Part Deux
Be Like Water Wow, it’s hot in Hong Kong! When we were here in May it was just steamy, now it’s downright unpleasant. Thats not the only thing that changes quickly in Hong Kong: a bakery and Vegetarian Restaurant that we loved on our first trip were closed on our second visit – only two months later.
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![Take Us With You!]()
Doh! We've been Shanghai'd!
Take Us With You! Just when we thought everything was resolved with our flights, it turns out that it wasn’t. You’d think that even the less than stellar women at the Qantas office in Beijing who issued us new paper tickets or the very stellar AA women in the U.
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![Shanghai Nights]()
Shanghai Shoppers
Shanghai Nights We’re in Shanghai at the moment, and we’ve had another near miss with my cousin Sam Forrest, we had a close encounter with him in New Zealand, but we were on opposite sides of the North Island.
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![Thats A Big Wall]()
Olympic Fever - Beijing
Thats A Big Wall The truth about Beijing, if you’ve been in China a while, is you only need a few days to see the sights, then get out …unless you want to go shopping. Then you could be there a month.
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Showdown at Qantas Office - Beijing
So part of the attraction of our Round the World ticket is it’s flexibility. Once you’ve identified you’re destinations and flight dates you can change your dates at will. So if you get some where and love it you can stay longer, or if you get somewhere and hate it you can jet out, and for a fee you can change your destinations entirely.
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China Notes for Budget Travelers
Our original budget for China was based on the costs of the big cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. Our goal was to stay at or below $70 a day for both of us. We were able to get by on about that in Hong Kong, but were able to easily stay below $50 a day for most of China.
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Camera Karma
Maybe we should have burned the yak butter at the Buddhist Temple or made one more round with the prayer wheels because we have had some kind of bad luck when it comes to cameras on this trip. After our misfortunes in Australia, we purchased another point and shoot digital camera to get us through until Hong Kong.
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![Long Live China]()
Things to Do in Beijing
Long Live China I have to admit – we probably shouldn’t even do an entry on Beijing until we go back there next month. Our three nights and two days there on this leg were mainly occupied with chores: picking up tickets from the travel agency, finding a camera shop to repair our busted equipment, trying to make a few changes to our airline tickets and doing laundry.
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![Shaolin Wushu Students]()
Shaolin Temple
Shaolin Wushu Students What can I say – Lonely Planet you got it wrong again! The LP entry on Shaolin kind of disses on it, making it seem like an over-touristed slock show. LeeAnne and I went in with very low expectations, but if you’ve seen as many Kung-Fu movies as I have, going to China without visiting Shaolin Temple is like eating a peanut butter sandwich with no peanut butter.
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![Terra Cotta Warriors]()
A Tale of Toes and Terra Cotta Warriors - Xian
Terra Cotta Warriors Of the many, must see' cities in China, Xi’an is certainly high on the list. It’s considered one of the four great ancient capitals of China and is the eastern terminus of the old Silk Route.
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![Panda Mania!]()
Mr. Wang & The Giant Pandas
Panda Mania! For many travelers who venture beyond the East Coast of China, it seems that the city of Chengdu is a natural stopping point and with good reason. As capital of the Sichuan Province, it’s a gateway to a number of great adventures and a popular jumping off point for Tibet.
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Trouble in Photo Upload Town
Call it bad luck, call it damn bad luck. But we have had a heck of a time recently finding a machine and a connection to upload photos from. For this we apologized.
Even if we can’t see what we’re posting you could, but recently we’ve either been in towns with no internet cafe’s, or towns with internet cafes and crap connections, or towns with good connections and machines so locked down we can’t even run the Flickr Uploadr.
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![Rock Art]()
Kanding Stopover
Rock Art I have to say we really didn’t really give Kanding a chance, we were only there one night before we moved on to Chengdu. If we had more time it probably would have been worth a day or two.
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![Monks Chillin]()
Litang - Little Tibet
Monks Chillin So for various reasons (time and cost being the biggest two, hassle being another), we have chosen not to go to Tibet. Let me explain a little: there are now three ways to get to Tibet from China proper
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![Friendly Monks]()
One Night in Xiencheng
Friendly Monks Xiencheng is a very nice little town in Southwest China with very little tourist traffic that you probably have never heard of.
If you’re in Xiencheng it’s probably to overnight here waiting for a bus to take you to another town.
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![The back streets of Zhongdian]()
Shangri-La - Not So Much
The back streets of Zhongdian Just north of Tiger Leaping Gorge at the edge of the Tibetan plateau sits the town of Zhongdian – recently renamed Shangri-La by the Chinese. It’s Tibetan name is Gyeltang, but no one uses it.
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![Tiger Leaping Gorge]()
Tiger Leaping Gorge
Tiger Leaping Gorge We just did a mini-trek at Tiger Leaping Gorge, it’s in the western part of Yunnan and it’s famous for being one of the steepest and most dramatic Gorges in the world. I have to say, it’s probably the highlight of China for us right now.
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The Great Firewall of China Strikes Again!
Before we had arrived in mainland China we were aware that censorship was alive and well here. The televised news is little more than propaganda and access to other forms on information is limited. Many web-sites, several that we use regularly are blocked.
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![Lijiang]()
Earthquakes, Orchestras and Pictograms
Lijiang One of the top 10 tourist sites in China is the World Heritage Site of Lijiang, a small town in the mountains of the Yunnan Province. It was ankle to elbow full of tourists, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying the people and culture that abound.
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![Mao Meets Capitalism]()
Comrades and Capitalist Roaders
Mao Meets Capitalism If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one must be worth a thousand dollars. This is China today. New cars being sold at the foot of Chairman Mao while “Life in the Fast Lane” blasts from stereos.
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![View from Lhasa Express]()
That Can Do Spirit!
View from Lhasa Express When we were in the early stages of planning our trip, I was only lukewarm to coming to China. But then I began to read more, not just about the tourist sites, but also about the history of China and its people.
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![Shane Battier is Big in China]()
The NBA - It's Chan-Tastic!
Shane Battier is Big in China Move over Ping-Pong, make room for Basketball. The NBA is surprisingly huge here. After Soccer it’s probably the biggest spectator sport in the country. The NBA play-offs are broadcast twice a day here, live at 8AM in the morning and then again at night, followed by a highlights show with Chinese talking heads summarizing the game.
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![It's so nice to see you...]()
Well, Hello Dali!
It's so nice to see you... Dali is a beautiful city with mountains on one side and a picturesque lake on the other. It’s an old walled city and unlike many of it’s ilk it has not yet been totally changed by tourism.
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![Sam Walton ...Made in China]()
Notes From a Chinese Walmart
Sam Walton ...Made in China I’m sure Sam Walton is spinning in his grave. The man who billed his store as “All-American, and American Made” now has a huge business in China, with All-Chinese made products.
We’re in Kunming, the capitol of Yunnan Province in the South-west of China, and our room is right around the corner from Yunnan’s first Walmart …how could we resist?
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![Can I Have You Over For Dinner]()
Fresh, Really Fresh
Can I Have You Over For Dinner One thing you can’t say about Chinese food is that it isn’t fresh, no frozen peas need apply. As a way of demonstrating let me relate something that happened to LeeAnne and I just the other day on the way back to our room:
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![Beverage, Pastry, Why Not Both]()
Early Reflections on China
Beverage, Pastry, Why Not Both So we’ve been in China for almost two weeks now and I have to say, sometimes I need to remind myself we’re in the Third World. After two months in India, being here is …refreshing.
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![Dragons Backbone Rive Terraces]()
The Dragon's Backbone
Dragons Backbone Rive Terraces From Yangshou, we headed back north through Guilin again and on to Longsheng – our base for visiting the Longji Rice Terraces, also known as the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces. I’d read a post online from another traveler that Yangshou was really too touristy (true) and that if you really wanted to see the people and countryside, you should head to Longji and the villages within.
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![Li River Scenery]()
Li River Daze
Li River Scenery One of the “must do” activities in China is a cruise down the Li River from Guilin to the smaller city of Yangshou. Like all good budget travelers we opted to join the Chinese tour. You get the same beautiful scenery sans the English commentary, but for half the price of the Foreigner’s tour.
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![Reed Flute Cave Near Gulin]()
Land of Limestone Towers & Caves - Guilin
Reed Flute Cave Near Gulin Guilin, it’s just one of the many cities in China with over a million inhabitants that you have probably never heard of. It’s also the first real stop for us in China (we spent a night in
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![Long Live China]()
Amen!
Long Live China Well it appears we’ve succeeded at obtaining a legitimate 30 day visa for me in China. While in Guilin, we visited the local Public Security Bureau to inquire about an extension. Word among travelers is that they are quite pleasant to deal with and offer a relatively quick turn around.
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High Road to China
We’re in! Well, almost …we’re crossing the border in a few hours, but LeeAnne was given a Visa. Just a ten day visa, but we’re hoping to get an extension in-country. Barring that, we’ll return to Hong Kong and reapply for a 30 day visa through a travel agency.
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![Hong Kong Phooey]()
Hong Kong Phooey
Hong Kong Phooey I have to say, after spending two months in India, there are few places better to go than Hong Kong. It’s clean, super-modern and very comfortable. We’re loving our time here, we’re staying in Kowloon, which is kind of a tourist ghetto, but a Hong Kong tourist ghetto is a lot better than a Indian, or even Australian tourist ghetto.
