After visiting Hong Kong and Macau it was time to return to mainland China to see the Giant Panda Bears! To return to mainland we opted to take a direct bus from Kowloon, Hong Kong to the Shenzhen airport. It is super easy and fast, allowing you to clear Hong Kong and enter mainland China …
May 11, 2009: After visiting Victoria Peak in Hong Kong we boarded the Turbo Jet Ferry, this time headed to Macau. Macau is a wonderful island, with Portuguese influence and a Las Vegas-type atmosphere. Like Hong Kong, Macau is a SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China. Already hearing announcements in Portuguese on the ferry gave …
May 10 and 11, 2009: After Yangshuo we took a quick day and a half visit to Hong Kong. To get there we flew from Guilin to Shenzhen, which was much cheaper than flying directly into Hong Kong. After spending the night in Shenzhen we took a taxi to the Lo Wu MRT station where …
May 8, 2009 We liked the scenery in Yangshuo so much that the next day we decided to tour it in another exciting way– in a hot air balloon! The cost was US $75/ person, which is much more than we normally spend on this trip, but probably a bargain compared to prices back home. …
Zhang Yimou was the director of the amazing Beijing Olympics opening ceremony and when we heard about a show put on by Zhang Yimou in Yangshuo on the Li River with the beautiful karst limestone mountains as the back drop, that was enough reason to visit Yangshuo! Up until this point, Yangshuo had been the …
After our bamboo raft ride we got back on our bikes and followed a map to find Moon Hill. As we started hiking up the hill we could feel that our legs were already tired from the bike ride, but we wanted to reach the top. We thought the path would only take us to …
May 7, 2009: Our original plan was to take a river cruise down the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo, but our hosts at the Yangshuo Outside Inn convinced us that the better way to explore the beauty of Guilin (Yangshuo) was to take a bamboo raft down the Yulong River. So, on our first …
Our journey began at 12:20 PM at the bus stop in front of the Melody Hotel located in the heart of old Xi’ An, which is across the street from the Drum Tower and very near the Bell Tower. The bus to the airport leaves every hour on the hour throughout the day. I don’t …
May 6, 2009: Our last day in Xi’ An we woke up early to ride bicycles on the city wall which is a square around the old city. There are multiple entrances to get on the wall, but we are uncertain if they are all open. To be certain and for the grand view, we …