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Whisper – China
My memory clouds when I try to recall the instant it initially arrived. Perhaps it was at that Italian restaurant in Kathmandu where I was adrift in a sea of smiling couples and friends who were sharing their oversized pizzas, a good laugh and an evening together. Eating alone is not new to me,
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Hospitality, the Chinese Way Part 2 – Yullin, China
Hospitality, the Chinese Way
Yullin, China
This wasn’t the plan. I was to be standing on the Great Wall, but instead I am singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” to 150 Chinese students. Not only am I singing, but I am also marching in place. To top off the tune, a jaunty salute and an
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Hospitality, the Chinese Way – Yullin, China
Yullin is divided into two sections that can be termed west and east, new and old, ugly and a-tad-ugly-but-with-charm. Stroll the twisting alleyways of east Yullin, and you are in another century. Bristly pigs share family courtyards that date from the Ming dynasty, crusty old men in Mao jacket
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Good Morning, Beijing – China
Good Morning, Beijing
China
Upside-down from a tree she hangs, her wiry hair blowing in the cool Beijing breeze. Twisting her lithe body, she jumps down and suddenly is standing straight as a reed, attempting to lift her left leg over her head. I hold my breath unconsciously as, inch by inch, h
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Stumbling through Guizhou #1 – Explaining Liuzhi – China
Explaining Liuzhi
I am a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching English in far western Guizhou
Province, China. I teach along with my fiance, Becky, in a medium sized
city called Liupanshui far out in the Southern Coal Sea. Liupanshui is the
administrative center for three counties, Liuzhi, Panxian, a
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Stumbling through Guizhou #3 – Dali Days – China
Dali Days
As a teacher living and working in China, places to relax and enjoy one’s
surroundings are a nice find. China is not a “laid back” country,
especially for a foreigner. The constant hustle and bustle of Chinese life
as well as the sometimes unwanted attention heaped
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Stumbling through Guizhou #2 – Fishing – China
Fishing
I have always enjoyed fishing. When I was young I used to frequent the
farm ponds around Mt. Gilead, Ohio searching for bluegills and small mouth
bass with my Zebco and rubber worms. As I grew older, I discovered the joys
of fly-casting. Although I was never a particularly successful f
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Stumbling through Guizhou #5 – Luke’s Bio – China
My name is Luke Taylor. I’m thirty-one years old and passing my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China with my finance Becky Boltz. I teach English. Well, I try to teach English but mainly wander in a daze, massively confused by China and the Chinese.
Before becoming to China I was a
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Stumbling through Guizhou #4 – Chinese Rafting – China
Chinese Rafting
In China, the first week in May is use to celebrate “Labor Day.” This is a
vestige of the old Communist practice of using May Day to celebrate the
workers of the world and to have parades celebrating military hardware.
Nowadays the Chinese government gives students,
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Shangri-la – or Somewhere in the Neighborhood #1: Kunming, Yunnan Province – China
Kunming, Yunnan Province
If Shangri-la is in Asia, its antithesis is LAX or Los Angeles International Airport. Of all the airports we encountered, LAX took the prize for longest lines at security checks. On a Monday before Thanksgiving, the pandemonium resembled a typical airport scene in New D
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Shangri-la – or Somewhere in the Neighborhood #2: Lijiang, Yunnan Province – China
Lijiang, Yunnan Province
Concrete and glass high-rise banks and hotels winked at the neighboring Jade Dragon Mountains as if to signal, “Just another plane-load of tourists high-tailing it to Old Town to savor its 750-year-old ‘mystery and authenticity.”
Our China Yunnan Air
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Shangri-la – or Somewhere in the Neighborhood #5: Where Yunnan meets Tibet: Deqen (aka Deqing) – China
Where Yunnan meets Tibet: Deqen (aka Deqing)
Meili Glacier Park
Unlike Zhondian which sprawled and stretched, Deqen huddled itself in the folds of Prince Meili Snow Mountain’s robes. I liked the way the street leading to our Meili Hotel gently sloped upward. Multi-leveled sho
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Shangri-la – or Somewhere in the Neighborhood #4: Zhondian – China
Zhondian
Zhondian lady
In the morning, Ge Sa, our local guide, tall and broad-shouldered, strode confidently into the Pacific Rim Hotel lobby. He was nineteen-years-old and spoke no English.
His thick wavy hair, stylishly cut, framed a perfect porcelain face. He wore local dress,
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Shangri-la – or Somewhere in the Neighborhood #3: Beyond Lijiang – China
Beyond Lijiang
Mr. Zhang, our driver, told us he preferred Zhondian over Lijiang. I asked him why, “Because Zhondian is hometown!” Unlike Norman, who was slender and fine-boned, Mr. Zhang stood solid and broad-shouldered, his face nicely bronzed from the mountain sun. He tried out h
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Worldwide with Wee-Cheng #64: Did Genghis Khan Lose His Organ (oops!) in China? – China
#63: Did Genghis Khan Lose His Organ (oops!) in China?
15 October 2002
Theme parks are not my taste and so I did none of that. I visited the Muslim quarter of Hohhot with its wonderful street food, and the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region Museum with its interesting display of relics relating
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Worldwide with Wee-Cheng #63: Northwest China – China
#62: Northwest China
15 October 2002
As my train rolled into Hohhot, I wandered if I have mistakenly gotten onto a train to Beijing or Shanghai. Here in Hehehaote (Chinese name for Hohhot), capital of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia (officially known as “Nei Menggu Autonomous Regio
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Worldwide with Wee-Cheng #65: Across the Heart of China: Buy a Mao Statue and Win the Lottery! Part I – China
#64: Across the Heart of China: Buy a Mao Statue and Win the Lottery! Part I
October 29, 2002
After a wonderful time in Ningxia, I took an overnight train across the dusty, yellowish loess plains that characterize much of the western part of China’s Yellow River valley. The area in what
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Worldwide with Wee-Cheng #66: Across the Heart of China: Buy a Mao Statue and Win the Lottery! Part II – China
#65: Across the Heart of China: Buy a Mao Statue and Win the Lottery! Part II
October 29, 2002
Off the boat at Yichang and then a bus on yet another new motorway to Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province. Wuhan, right at the middle of China proper (i.e., minus the western minority ethnic areas), is
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Worldwide with Wee-Cheng #67: Yunnan Province, China: An encounter with Dr. Ho, the legendary Taoist Doctor of the Jade Dragon S
#66: Yunnan Province, China:
An encounter with Dr. Ho, the legendary Taoist Doctor of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain
03 NOV 2002
I have arrived in Jinhong, capital of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture at the souhern tip of Yunnan Province. I’m staying at Xishuangbanna Binguan, a
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The Year of Living Differently #3: Horses, Trains & Muddy Public Buses – Lijiang to Chendu, China
2: Horses, Trains & Muddy Public Buses
LIJIANG to CHENGDU, CHINA – 9 May, 2002
The 9-hour bus-ride spun me round and round downhill from Lijiang to Panzhihua. Panzhihua must be the opposite of what Lijiang is. It was set by a brown river, had many factories with chimneys (even nuclea
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