Yangshou is a beautiful place. It has the spectacular karst scenery we had seen in Guilin but none of the unpleasantness which we had experienced there. We ended up staying in Yangshuo for a week (partly due to the fact that we were waiting for our visa extensions to be processed). The first three nights [...]
Guillin was a real disappointment, especially after Chengdu. It does have some spectacular karst scenery with the mountains seemingly appearing between buildings in the middle of the city. However, the surroundings did not make up for the fact that pretty much everyone in Guillin is tourist savvy and trying, at every opportunity, to rip you [...]
Chengdu doesn’t appear to be a place which is frequented by many foreign tourists. I suspect we went there because Matthew had seen an Anthony Bourdain programme raving about the spicy food. He denies this. Whatever the reason I am definitely happy we went. I think it was, overall, probably my favourite of the cities [...]
Xi’an’s Muslim quarter provides a fantastic opportunity for hunting down great street food. The narrow streets here come alive after dark. The open fronted restaurants spill out onto the pavement with tables and chairs and huge barbecues for the grilling of mutton skewers. I ate a fantastic meal perched on a plastic stool sharing a [...]
The main motivation for visiting the city of Xi’an was to see the Terracotta Army. I have to say I was rather impressed with the pits containing the chariots, soldiers and horses at various stages of excavation. Matthew, on the other hand, was left feeling quite underwhelmed by the whole experience.
Shanghai is an amazing city. In general we definitely preferred it to Beijing. We spent five days here seeing the sights and taking in the big city atmosphere. We particularly enjoyed the panoramic view of The Bund and beyond from the 80th floor of the Jin Mao Tower and the boat trip down the Huangpu [...]
One of my main motivations for this trip was to sample some strange and usual food from around the world. We’ve had some very interesting things to eat on our journey so far. Russia was as expected, the food is generally average. The best food to be found is the home cooking which can be [...]
Matthew had visited Beijing five years ago. It was my first trip visit and there was a lot to see. Beijing has an incredible number attractions but the highlight for the week-long stay for me was probably watching Matthew rip a hole from the ‘bottom area’ of his trousers while playing ‘keepy-uppy’ with a large [...]
To shelter from a down pour we decided that it was time I had my hair cut. Good value at 15 RMB. This guy just loved having his photo taken. I declined the offer of a shave. 7/10
