Chengdu, China, Asia I got up this morning for breakfast at 7:30am, and then our tour took off at 8am. By 8:30am we had pulled into the panda breeding center. We had to walk about twenty minutes uphill to get to the first panda house, and when we finally got there, I was a little disappointed. This was nothing like the nature reserve where I saw the orangutans in Borneo, this was just a zoo. Each set of pandas had…
Chengdu, China, Asia I woke up on the train this morning around 8am after getting just a few hours sleep. It was fairly comfortable, but I am constantly waking up every hour to make sure my bags are still there and my valuables still inside. I guess that’s the bad thing about travelling with a laptop and an iphone, it’s just more for someone to steal. I watched UFC 136 this morning to help pass a bit of time, and…
Chengdu, China, Asia I got up this morning and was very happy to see that my internet connection was good enough to watch the Patriots game from last night on the slingbox. I was even happier to see the Patriots beat the Jets 30-21 for a very important division game. I said bye to Greg as he headed off to go hiking in the rice terraces for a couple of days, and we might meet up again in Chengdu. I…
Guilin, China, Asia I got up this morning and had a pretty decent breakfast at the hostel before getting picked up by the tour group at 10:15am. It was a full bus so there were about forty of us heading down the road to Zhujiang pier to get on our boat. It was already not exactly what Greg and I had expected as the English tour guide, was actually a Chinese tour guide who tried to repeat everything in English….
Guilin, China, Asia I got up this morning at about 7am, and had gotten about 3-4 hours sleep. That’s pretty good considering I had my backpack and camera bag on the pillow with me so I had so little room in the bed. Every time I moved, I got my backpack right in the face, but at least I knew it was still there! We were supposed to get off the train at 7:35am, but we were delayed by a…
Guangzhou, China, Asia I got up this morning at 7:30am and left the hostel at 8am to get to the train station in town. I had come into Guangzhou East Train Station last night, so I couldn’t buy my next train ticket because the one I want leaves from Guangzhou Train Station. I took the metro from Fangcun up to Guanzhou Train Station which was easy enough. All of the signs in the metro were in Chinese and in English,…
Guangzhou, China, Asia I got up this morning at 8am and packed up all my stuff. That’s the worst part about staying in a dorm is that if you’re not packed up the night before, you have to try to be ultra-quiet so you don’t wake up everyone else in the room while you’re packing. I think I did a pretty decent job, but the rest of the guys might not agree. I left my big bag at the hostel…
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Asia I got up this morning and felt much better. Glad to see I haven’t started getting two day hangovers yet! I did a bit more planning on what I’ll see when I go to China, and then headed out. I grabbed the ferry over to Hong Kong Island, and I’m still amazed that it only costs $2HK ($0.25US). I had a walk through the botanical gardens, which were nice, and then went to my favorite…
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Asia I woke up very hungover today. I guess I’m just not used to drinking very much, so the combination of Leffe, Tiger, Jack & Coke, 7&7 and more Tiger just didn’t agree with me. Regardless, I got up at 7:30am so I could go down to the Chinese embassy to apply for my visa. Luckily Danielle was heading there as well, so she showed me the way. It was a fairly easy process, it just…
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Asia I woke up this morning and packed up my stuff and grabbed some breakfast downstairs at the hostel. I was getting a taxi at 7:30am so I knew I wasn’t going to have enough time to watch the Patriots game before I left, so I cheated and looked at the score on ESPN. It was a great win for the Pats against the Raiders, and brought us to the top of the AFC East at…