To wrap up the China section for now (and to delay talking about my blown budget until later in this post), here are some random thoughts about China and the Chinese… Public Toilets abound Read the star rating and take…
What? A truly unique experience in China
Some of you have heard about how I am acting as an unofficial US Ambassador to China via the basketball court. In fact, since Kobe calls himself the Black Mamba, I have been generously dubbed the Yellow Mamba by the crew. I guess…
Biking the Yangshuo Countryside
After our walk around the city, we decided to see the countryside via bicycles on days 65 and 67 of the trip. Armed with a map and the directions “always keep the river on your left” we set out to…
A Walk Around Yangshuo
Some things are worth the effort. The train from Xian to Guilin was 27 hours of bumps and trying not to track whatever was around the squat toilet back into our cabin. After a bit of worry and wait, we…
The Great Wall Part 2 – by Anna
On the 22nd of October we went hiking on the Great Wall. Not the refurbished part but the part where it is all crumbly and has huge rocks in the middle. We had to climb over 100 degree inclines. There…
Catching Up After China’s Internet – Xi’an
When I left the job back in August, one of the best feelings was the sense that I wouldn’t have any more deadlines – no due dates, no by-when’s, not even kids’ practices to get to. But the truth is that…
Hongluo Temple
When we were planning this trip, we had a few must see places on our list and then we figured we could just fill in extra days with suggestions we received along the way. We booked 5 nights at HY…
The Great Wall- Mutianyu
Our first experience on The Great Wall occurred in Mutianyu on day 49 — and it was majestic. Our second Great Wall experience a few days later was death defying. I will let one of the kids write about that since I…
Beijing
We touched down in Beijing from Berlin with another case of significant jet-lag on day 47. After about 15 circles around the transport area looking for our shuttle, we took a cab. This was our first taste of Beijing traffic.…