August 23-24, 2009 – Day 242-243 – Beijing, China
Yesterday was a boring day for posting. Only exciting thing to happen was that we discovered we had bought tickets for the soft sleeper bullet train to Beijing despite our numerous pleas for “hard sleeper.” Granted it was a really, really nice train and it got us to Beijing in only 10 speedy hours.
Ahh now thats more like it
August 7, 2009 – Day 225 – Chengdu, China
We are so happy that we switched hostels! Last night was spent at the amazing Sim’s Cozy Garden Hostel and it was awesome! Anyway, light post today because we stayed in to work out our Tibet plan, which is quite a mess! Note: Sim’s has a great posting board for trying to find other travelers for Tibet groups.
Lindsey enjoying some lunch
July 30, 2009 – Day 217 – Kunming, China
Well, we and a fellow traveler we met at the hostel suffered a failed attempt this morning at trying to go to the Shilin Stone Forest. We arrived early, as the hostel staff suggested, but the only 2 remaining minibuses that were heading toward Shilin wanted to charge us each almost 3 times what the fare should have been.
Lunch!
July 28, 2009 – Day 215 – Kunming, China
Grabbed a bus this morning to the supposedly beautiful Dianchi lake park. While the park itself was very nice, the lake was suffering from a large algae bloom that turned the whole lake toxic sludge green.
Just waiting for "Swamp Thing" to crawl out
July 23, 2009 – Day 210 – Guilin, China
One thing you will notice about China is the absence of breakfast. Well, at least as you are probably used to it. Here, a typical Chinese breakfast is noodles, maybe in soup, maybe with vegetables, maybe with a sticky bun, but noodles.
Boatman on the river
July 22, 2009 – Day 209 – Guilin, China
There is something inherently wrong with a place that refuses to serve a person after they have already made one order. And especially when that person being refused service is me.
Fishing in the river
July 18-19, 2009 – Day 205-206 – Hong Kong
Well, we slept most of the day away due to our apparent aversion to fixing our jetlagged bobyclocks. Otherwise, we regret to report a rather dull day of rain and also planning our first month in China and little else. More eating and sleeping…Hmm… pretty typical stuff. But hey—we leave for mainland on Monday!
Just a rainy workday/night
July 17, 2009 – Day 204 – Hong Kong
Still intensely jet-lagged. Can’t seem to get to bed til 3am and can’t seem to wake up til noon or 1pm. But, the good news: we got our Chinese visas today! It was incredibly easy, much to our relief, but cost a little bit extra.
The view down our block
July 15, 2009 – Day 202 – Hong Kong
After a confusing morning of more attempts to find the Mirador Mansion with both a faulty map and utterly incorrect directions (written by the hostel!), we finally had success thanks to Saben’s mad navigational skills that are borderline freakish. We spent our day wandering around the city, exploring the endless shopping malls, seeking a cheap barber for Saben’s chia-beard, and finally, phase one of chopstick mastery. There was no fork option and we were eating noodles in soup though they were nice enough to provide everyone with a ladel.
Complicated with chopsticks
July 12, 2009 – Day 199 – Budapest, Hungary
Last day in Budapest. And what a lucky day! Our favorite bakery was closed (not so lucky) so we had pizza for breakfast(ish) and happened upon a huge music and food festival (very lucky) happening around and across one whole (huge) bridge over the Danube.
On the bridge
Taxi Rides = 123
Boat Rides = 35
Motorcycle Rides = 10
Plane Rides = 16
Bus Rides =330
Train Rides = 124
Rickshaw Rides = 98
Truck Bed Rides = 25
Rainy Days = 42
Current Rummy Score
Lin 10950, Saben 12435
