Me-go Mix: Track 5 “Superstar” — S.H.E. (???) This song was everywhere during my first trip to China in Phase I. It was blasting from every other storefront, sung by teenagers walking down the street and playing every time I turned on the TV. S.H.E., a Taiwanese trio formed from the winners of a singing…
Me-go Mix: Track 3 “Ji Xiang San Bao (?????)” — Burenbayaer To download using Windows “right click” and save to disk. Mac users, you know what to do. If there’s one song that reminds me of my recent travels in China it’s Ji Xiang San Bao. During 2004’s Phase I, a handful of pop songs…
So much time and effort has gone into my visa planning, particularly for Central Asia, that I’m surprised it’s finally time to start applying for them. Thankfully, the first two countries I am visiting—South Korea and Mongolia—give US citizens free visas on arrival. China isn’t quite so easy, and because I will pass through it…
I really cornered myself in the Yunnan Province. The province?s main city, Kunming, is quite large but outside of the main highway between Dali and Kunming the roads are rough and slow. The area I was in was much closer to Laos and Myanmar than the Vietnamese border I wanted to cross. My options were…
It?s hard to believe that I?ve been travelling for two months straight. In the grand scheme of things it hasn?t been long at all, but I imagine that it must seem like an eternity to most people back home (especially my mom). Halloween passed with no fanfare this year. People who know me well will…
After a bumpy 12-hour night bus from Kunming to Jinghong I had finally arrived in my last destination in China–the Xishuangbanna Region. My main reason for coming here was to see the ethnic minorities in the smaller towns. Jinghong, a ?modern? Chinese city, was my base since most buses originate from there. It?s streets are…
I can now say that I?ve traveled by hard seat in China. Hard seat is basically the lowest class of travel by train. The seats aren?t terribly hard–they could be wood. But 7 hours sitting on a bench in-between two middle age Chinese men and across from a couple that fought the entire trip was…
Dali wasn?t somewhere I really wanted to see but it seemed like a good enough place to stop. Only 3 hours from Lijiang, the minibus passed large fields with people working, picking crops by hand. The actual town doesn?t have much to see, only a few town gates which are being recreated (along with the…
Lijiang is a smaller town dubbed ?the Venice of China? because of it?s many canals, stone bridges and cobblestone alleys. The journey here was interesting–a 12-hour train ride from Emei into the Yunnan Province followed by a breathtaking and often terrifying 8-hour bus ride over the mountains. The usual bidding war over me, the only…
It?s not really getting any warmer as I head south. I?m still carrying around the coat I bought in Xi?an and the scarf and hat I bought in Xiahe. My first short stop from Chengdu was Leshan, a town which is overpriced and moving as fast as it can toward Westernization. Towns like Chengdu and…
Chengdu isn?t somewhere where there are a lot of sites to see, but it?s a large city on my way South to the Yunnan Province. From Xiahe I took the same 6-hour bus ride back to Lanzhou followed by a train ride that lasted over 20 hours. On the bus I sat next to a…
Hopefully nobody was too worried that I was somehow “detained” in China. I am now in Chegdu and it has been a bit more difficult than Japan to connect to the internet (and upload files) so it has taken me a while to post new entries. I am backdating them so please check out entries…
After Xi?an I headed West again. Another sleeper train took me to Lanzhou, the largest city in the Gansu Province, where I immediately caught a six hour bus to a small mountain town called Xiahe. The town has a large Tibetan influence because of the Buddhist Temple founded there which has a famous pilgrim?s walk…
I originally wanted to travel from Beijing to Pingyao, a small city with original city walls, but all of the trains were full. October 1st–7th is China?s national holiday, a time when everyone in the country has the week off work. Because everyone wants to travel at once there is a tremendous shortage of tickets…
A group of us piled into a tiny minibus at 7am for the four-hour ride to the Simatai section of the great wall. The rest of the group were dropped off at a different site and walked 10k on the wall to reach Simatai. I was content with walking the area around Simatai and not…
Although I stayed sick for a few days I pressed on to the main tourist attractions in Beijing. I decided to pay Chairman Mao a visit first mainly to see how the Chinese tourists react to him. Apparently the unofficial tagline here regarding Mao is that he was 70% right and 30% wrong. Before you…
China?s not working out real well for me so far. My first full day here was spent at the Temple of Heaven Park where I tried to understand why Coke ?light? costs more than Coke. I drew a bit and met a nice older German couple who invited me to visit them in Hamburg. I…
My flight from Tokyo to Beijing was uneventful. I used my last 360Y to buy a very large bag of M&Ms. ANA (All Nippon) has a camera mounted under the plane?s nose so you can see the land approaching during you descent. I?m sure I haven?t seen that on any American or European airlines. I…