Near the town of Huangshan is the 154 square km Mount Huang mountain range, a series of 36 jagged granite peaks lined with unique pine trees. The tops of the mountains are above the clouds and the spectacular views have inspired art and literature throughout Chinese history. Literally translated as the Yellow Mountains it’s reached [...]
Posts Tagged ‘china’
Crouching Fly, Hidden Village – Hongcun, China
Hongcun is a small village dating back a thousand years to the Ming and Qing dynasties. The 140 houses are perfect examples of the Anhui province style architecture with oversized white walls topped by grey tiles. The village is very much in use today, and not at all given over to tourism, so when you [...]
West Lake – Hangzhou, China
About 2 hours by car or 75 minutes by train from Shanghai lies the town of Hangzhou, a city described by Marco Polo as “beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world”. Once the largest city in the world before the Mongol sacking in 1276 it was previously a main trading port in [...]
City Above The Sea – Shanghai, China
Shanghai is the largest and most developed city in China, growing massively over the last ten years to a population of nearly 19 million people. At the turn of the 19th century Shanghai was still divided between China and the 8-nation Alliance consisting of Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Japan, the United States and the [...]
World Expo 2010 – Shanghai, China
The main focus of our trip to Shanghai was to visit the 2010 World Expo. The first World’s Fair was held in 1851 in London, and was intended to showcase innovation and products from all over the world. Since then the focus of the Exposition has changed more towards national pavilions showcasing the best of [...]
Shanghai World Expo Road Trip – Huainan, China
Having decided to go and visit the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai we discovered there are a few options to travel the 1200km there. Coaches are ferrying people from all over the country to use the free Expo tickets given to everyone in China. Whilst coaches will get you around, I did enough bus travel [...]
Groceries – Beijing, China
For groceries there’s a number of little corner shops underneath the apartment complex, or a Tesco within walking distance, but it’s quite scruffy. Much nicer is the Carrefour about 2km into town, which is worth the short taxi ride. Carrefour was the first large supermarket chain to enter China and have all the best locations, [...]
Restaurants – Beijing, China
Restaurant food here is cheap and exceedingly fast – if the first dish doesn’t appear within a couple of minutes of ordering the customers start shouting at the staff to hurry up. Usually we order a selection of dishes and share everything without bothering with plates, just eating direct from the serving plates with chopsticks. [...]
Local vs Tourist picture locations – Beijing, China
Eric Fischer has created an interesting series of city maps detailing the differences in locations of where tourists and locals take photos. London is pretty much entirely covered, but Beijing for example shows the obvious fact that whilst tourists cluster round the major sights, locals are far more likely to take photos in the suburbs [...]
Getting About – Beijing, China
Public transport here is very popular – the majority of commuters don’t drive into work, but instead use the subway, which has ten lines and runs all over town, with a journey of any distance costing just ¥2, or 20p. It’s pretty crowded at peak times but fast and efficient. A prepaid contactless travel card [...]
