[slideshow] Behind the relative glitz and glamour of Beijing and Xi’an, Chongquing gives an insight into the real urban China. Located in the Sichuan Province, the municipalities’ 32 million people live in a sea of high rises on a scale I have never witnessed before. Tower block central, 30 plus stories high, it’s difficult to see…
[slideshow] Proclaimed as the eighth wonder of the world and now a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Terracotta Warriors are the reason many people visit Xi’an. I remember seeing them on Blue Peter and Newsround when I was a kid, but I didn’t know the story and wasn’t prepared for the sheer scale of the…
[slideshow] The Shaanxi Province Rare Animal Breeding Centre, two hours outside of Xi’an, offered an excellent opportunity to see pandas in their natural habitat…or so we thought! Leaving the hostel at 7.30am we joined another fifteen or so bleary eyed, yet eager, travellers on a cramped coach. There was even an overspill car laid on…
As much as there is to love about China…the food; the endearing fascination with anything western; people’s friendliness and hospitality; the hustle and bustle of 1.5 billion people going about their daily business and the ever entertaining “Chinglish” translations; there is one cultural difference I cannot (and am unlikely to ever) become accustomed to… …spitting….
[slideshow] The 22 hour train ride from Beijing to Xi’an passed without incident (0nce we’d finally found each other at the different station entrances!) and after a surprisingly good nights’ sleep in a four berth sleeper cabin we were ready for a roam around the sights. We weaved our way back to Shuyuan hostel at…
[slideshow] If you’re after arts and nightlife, in between sightseeing, there’s plenty on offer in Beijing… 798 Art District – An interesting attempt at showcasing contemporary art, set in an old industrial part of Beijing, about an hour away from the centre. Relaxed, cosmopolitan café’s, large open gallery spaces and some interesting sculptures, but nothing groundbreaking…
[slideshow] Once you have adjusted to its size, culture shock has kicked in and you are emerging from the other side, Beijing boasts a veritable banquet of history, culture, communism and capitalism all rolled into one. There’s the amazing Hutongs – narrow alleyways and courtyards crammed with character, dirty looking restaurants serving the most amazing food,…
A city like no other I have been to before, Beijing is BIG! Well more accurately, it’s HUGE! But, thanks to the 2008 Olympics, getting about, even for non-Mandarin speakers, is easy and inexpensive. With 16million people needing to get from A to B in China’s capital city, the only things a visitor needs to…
So, there was an Englishwoman, Irishwoman, Hong Kong born Australian and Singaporean in a Peking Duck restaurant…no this isn’t the start of a tasteless Bernard Manning joke and no the duck wasn’t peeking! However, it led to a miscommunication reminiscent of “Fork Handles” that Ronnie Barker (R.I.P) would have been proud of! After ordering and…
[slideshow] After a couple of days in Beijing, someone stumbled across the aptly named band – “Whitest Boy Alive” listed in Time Out Beijing. We were all feeling pretty white and western ourselves after being continually stared at by the locals, plus still exhausted from the end of the Vodkatrain and another dose of culture shock. We needed a break…