Having finished most of our packing the previous night — successfully cramming everything into our two original suitcases and a couple of carry-ons to avoid the complication of purchasing a third bag — we awoke Sunday morning to make… Read More
We slept in this morning, then decided to have lunch at Huang Ting, the Peninsula’s Cantonese restaurant. We took advantage of their weekend dim sum buffet – nearly 40 items, as much as we wanted – and enjoyed… Read More
We were up at 5:30 AM, on the train by 6:15, and by 7:00 we were eating Egg McMuffins on the bus to the Great Wall. Finding the bus stop the day before had been a smart thing… Read More
Waking up to yet another rainstorm, we decided to make it an “inside day” and check out some of Beijing’s indoor shopping markets. For lunch, we wanted to try a restaurant called Noodle Loft that we had seen on TV;… Read More
Our train was scheduled to arrive in Beijing at 7:15 AM; around 6:30, lights and music came on throughout the cars and we got ready to disembark. We’d slept OK, though the rumble of the train woke me up quite a… Read More
We woke up to rain. AGAIN. After checking out of the hotel, we left our luggage with the desk and went out to explore more of Xian. Today we were headed for the ancient city wall, which rings… Read More
After enjoying the free breakfast in our hotel, we got a cab and headed for Xian’s train station. We had two goals here: buy train tickets to Beijing and locate the bus that would take us to the… Read More
We woke up, packed our bags, had breakfast, and checked out of the hotel at noon. We had an hour before our taxi arrived to take us to the airport, so we hung out in the hotel’s common… Read More
This morning was the foggiest one so far; some of the karsts right outside our hotel were almost completely hidden. More rain was forecast, but it didn’t stop us from going for a short hike to a small village nearby and… Read More
This morning we got up early, had a quick breakfast, and met our taxi driver at 8:30 AM for the trip to the Longsheng Longji Rice Terraces. It was a long drive, almost 3-1/2 hours, but the sun… Read More
