So we finally arrived in Beijing, and I think only then did it dawn on us just how massive a country China is! I know that sounds ridiculous but it's true & there was so much for us to see & do.

We settled in a bit too easy to be honest, as we soon met up with Jonathan & Renea (friends we'd met at EBC) and went out on the p**s! But after the initial partying we got down to some serious sight-seeing.

We did all of the usual - first Tiananmen Square which was sooooooo big! Maybe thats a too obvious statement to make but it' really is.......the Forbidden City, the Olympic Village, and of course not forgetting the Great Wall which was truly amazing. It's incredible to see it spread for Miles before your eyes. Another great place we visited was Art District 768. We spent hours here looking at some incredible modern art which made a great escape from the traditional touristy places.

overlooking the Forbidden City

The Olympic Village

Art District 768

But of all of the places, landmarks & temples we visited our most favourite was the Summer Palace - which as it sounds was where the royal family spent their Summer holidays. It took us almost 4 hours to get around. We just wandered & gazed & lost ourselves for a few hours which was just lovely.

At the Summer Palace

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on June 19, 2011 from Beijing, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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We'd arranged the next day to meet up with our friend from Stoke, Sue, who'd been working in Shanghai for a while so she gave us a tour of the best places in the city........which was basically 'City Shop' - a supermarket that sold western food and sold freshly made butties & baguettes (yum! just what we were craving!), the indoor market that sold lots of fake goods such as cheap make -up & handbags, and the best bars to go to. What else did we need to know?!

We had a pretty crazy night, too much G&T but we did get a feel for the city & Sue gave us a great insight into all of the tourist spots we needed to see so the next day (albeit with a wee hangover) we set about seeing the sights - the beautiful Yuyuan Gardens, the Jing'an Temple......which has been completely moved brick by brick to Shanghai city centre & looks very strange set against the skyscrapers & high-end fashion shops, and we also splurged out and had a few cocktails on the 85th floor of the Grand Hyatt. Well it would have been rude not to!!!

Yuyuan Garden

Peoples Square

A chinese delicacy we did NOT try

Jing'an Temple

The 85th floor City view. Stunning!

Suzhou is not on the same Grand scale of Beijing or Shanghai, granted, but is it very vast & there are lots of beautiful places to visit - the Tiger Hill Gardens were absolutely gorgeous and we lazed away a few hours here just taking in the views. There's also a canal that runs just outside the Gardens across some of Suzhou city and this was probably the highlight of our trip here…….the stilt houses that sit beside the canal look just charming & it all feels a bit romantic. We loved it!

In the evening we went to a lovely tree-lined street that had some amazing boutique shops ( I am on a budget & I did NOT purchase unfortunately!), a few bars , some yummy street food stalls, and also the evening Theatre. We watched 7 'performances' that included traditional chinese musicians & mini plays set within a Traditional Chinese home. We felt very cultural (get us!) but also it made us really appreciate the traditional art form of China- it was so interesting & so completely different to what we expected to see. It was fab.

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on July 5, 2011 from Suzhou, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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Another day trip we made & were really looking forward to was to the Shaolin Monks (at Shaolin obviously) but to be honest the trip was a bit of a waste of time. We only got to see them perform for about 30 mins & it was a bit naff & didn't really shows off their skills.

Off to see the Shaolin Monks. Yeeeeehaaah!

There were however loads of great street food stalls in Louyang - China is pretty much all about the food! Dan's fave were nan bread-style snacks stuffed with pork & Spring onion & smothered in chilli of course……they were almost my fave too before I discovered they had meat in them. I thought they were a bit too tasty ;-)

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on July 7, 2011 from Luoyang, China
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The streets of Pingyao

There were lots of little streets & alleyways that were lovely to wander through. Most of them were lined with 'tat shops' (selling tourist crap) but again we discovered a hidden gem of a food stall that was literally a few plastic chairs on the street with a guy & his wok. In Pingyao one of their local dishes is 'cat ear noodles' which are shaped just a the name implies & actually tasted a bit pasta like. They stir-fried it with lots of fresh tomatoes, veggies & chilli & it was so delicious we ate this dish for 3 days on the trot, sometimes twice a day. And the bonus was it cost us about 2 quid for two massive bowls & a couple of beers!

Our fave chef in Pingyao

So we ate. walked, and ate some more, as outside of the city walls they was not much to see.
We also met a fab couple from Manchester called Danielle & Richard (who weirdly are family friends with one of our good friends who live in Nottingham. It's a small world as they say!) so we had a couple of beers with them too. Well it would have been rude not to ;-)

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on July 10, 2011 from Pingyao, China
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The city of Xian itself is fab. One of our favourite spots was the Muslim Quarter - it was a bustling area of markets & local people across lots of little streets, but again we mostly loved it for the gorgeous food you could buy! It was a foodie haven……….we ate delicious flat style breads stuffed to the brim with either a meat or veggie filling & deep fried. Wrong, but just so right! Oh and there was a great cake/pastry stall that sold the best peanut brittle which we ashamedly bought about 5 bags of in just 2 days.

Muslim Quarter food. Delicious!

Situated just outside of the Muslim Quarter were the Bell & Drum Towers. We managed to see a Drum show one day which was great, and from the top of each of the towers you could see great views across the city.

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on July 13, 2011 from Xian'e, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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Across the whole of China I have to say that the local people are so friendly and everyone we met were very genuine & lovely helpful people. They seemed to like practising their English (which was great for us as we could only manage a few Chinese words) and often would go out of their way & take the time to help us.

So back to the boat! We made it in the end & boarded at about 5pm. Neither of us know what to expect really as we had never been on a cruise before, but it turned out to be really great. We saw our itinerary for the next 5 days and we were actually really looking forward to being told what to do, taken to places, being fed & generally not having to think for ourselves :-)

Each day we'd be woken in our 1970's style cabin by an early morning walk-up call. 7am!!! After our big daily breakfast we'd then go off to our trip for the day, of which there were 3;

1. The Yangze Dam - an amazing structure which was built to manage the water levels & prevent future flooding, but unfortunately in order to build it they had to flood an entire villages & re-home all of the locals.

Three Gorges Dam

2. Hanging Coffins- we took a Paddle boat trip along the yellow river which was just breathtaking scenery, very green & lush but I also thought it felt a bit spooky! Probably because I was most excited about seeing the hanging coffins…………..which are nestled about 100 feet above in the rocks, literally perched on the edge. Nobody knows why or how they got there (or if they do they don't say in order to add to the mystery of it all!) but either way I really loved the trip.

The spooky hanging coffins!

At one point, in the really low water levels, our paddle boat was pulled along by about 7 men who waded through the water in their bare feet. To say they were strong was an understatement!

3. Ghost City - A temple that was set high upon the hill overlooking the Yellow River. It was named after the 2 people who built it, but some confusion about their names getting mixed up when translated into English meant 'Ghost' hence the name. It definitely wasn't as spooky or mystical as the hanging coffins but was still a great day out.

Ghost City

All in all we really enjoyed our cruise & would definitely recommended anyone to do it. We met some lovely people, ate more than our fair share of gorgeous food & saw some breathtaking scenery.

Meet the Captain!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on July 18, 2011 from Yichang, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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Beside the Pandas, another trip on our agenda was to visit the 80 foot Giant Buddha at Leshan. Unfortunately for us we visited on a Saturday, during the public holidays, on a red hot scorching 34 degree day, so to say it was packed out was an understatement. We had to wait in a 3 hour queue just to get to the beginning of the queue to even see the Buddah!
So we waited. And waited. And we were about 3 hours into queuing when I had a bit of a funny do, almost fainted and had to be carried out of the queue to sit down.
So after all of that I didn't even get to see the bloody Buddah!! Thankfully Danny did. And the pictures look pretty good so it was kind of worth it.

The Buddha is VERY big :-)

We explored Chengdu on the bus mainly, it was so easy to get around and in the evening we would go the the night market which was just so pretty, full of lots of little stalls & really good places to eat & drink. BBQ skewers & noodles were pretty much our Chengdu diet. Perfect!

The fabulous night market

Within the city, amongst the fast food restaurants & chain stores is the Bird & Flower market which is really worth a visit- you can buy pretty much anything you want to here although I think it's a lot more tame than it used to be. But you can definitely pick us something far more interesting than in the high street shops.

poor little chicks!

We were also very close to Green Lake park which was where all the locals would go to sing Karaoke, do their Tai Chi, or just generally dance around and have fun. But the best thing was that the majority of the locals were over 60. At least. They'd be singing & dancing around, having great fun & it was so lovely to watch. Not to mention very entertaining. To say there were a few 'characters' hanging around would be an understatement ;-)

Water Lillies at Green Lake Park

This guy was crazy!! One of the many sights we saw at the park ;-)

Aside from eating & drinking we did a little trek one day & decided to walk almost 2hours up the Mountain instead of taking a 20 minute cable car ride. The scenery was fab, however the rain was very persistent that day & when we finally reached the top we had to take cover. It absolutely chucked it down!!
There was no way we could make it down by walking, it would have been just too slippy & steep so we succommed & took the cable car. Coincidently it was here that we met an Australian couple that actually had family in the same town as where my Mum lives, and they had even visited 'Mow Cop' which is where we live.
It truly is a small world!!

written by  mich_and_dan_moors on August 1, 2011 from Dali, China
from the travel blog: mich_and_dan_moors's Travel Blog
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