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10 fascinating facts about Harbin, Chinas ice festival city
An avalanche of visitors descends on Harbin for the annual Ice & Snow Festival. And its well worth braving the cold: the sculptures are often record-breaking in size and night illuminations of the ice add a surreal kaleidoscope of colour to northeastern Chinas bitter winters (minus 13C on a good
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Hong Kongs most breathtaking views: where to glimpse the city from above
Hong Kong’s power buildings and gleaming harbour are made for the cinema. The city’s views have inspired the sci-fi classic Blade Runner and awed audiences in The Dark Knight. Luckily, unlike Batman, you don’t have to scale a 400-storey building for a glimpse of Hong Kong’s dramatic skyline. There a
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The ultimate guide to shopping in Hong Kong
Everyone knows Hong Kong as a place of neon-lit retail pilgrimage –?all international brands worth their logo have outlets here, and they are supplemented by the city’s own retail trailblazers. That said, Hong Kongs?reputation as a bargain hunter’s paradise is pretty much a thing of the past.
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What to eat in Hong Kong
Tiny Hong Kong is home to some 10,000 restaurants, the majority specialising?in Chinese cooking, especially?Cantonese dishes. Originally from?Guangzhou (Canton),?Cantonese cuisine flourished in the former British colony and is known for an almost religious insistence on freshness, an adventurous spi
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The most incredible Chinese cities youve never heard of
Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong are China’s glamour triplets. Everybody knows them, everybody wants to see them (and hopefully snap a selfie). And yeah, they’re pretty fantastic. But did you know that China is home to an incredible 600+ cities, more than 160 of which have populations greater than a
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Best free things to do in Hong Kong
Hong Kong is not a cheap place, but with a bit of planning and creativity, you can spend an enjoyable day in the city on very little money. Outdoor spaces, street?concerts, galleries and markets abound in this packed metropolis, many open free-of-charge.
Local buses and rooftop car parks provide bud
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24 hours in Macau
Just an hour from Hong Kong by high-speed ferry lies the former Portuguese colony of Macau. Its heritage?architecture sits easily alongside incense-scented temples and shrines, and the Portuguese spoken by some long-time residents intermingles with local?Cantonese and the Mandarin of the crowds from
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Essential regional cuisine of China
Everyone has their own idea of Chinese cuisine, whether it’s informed by adventurous cookbook readings or late night trips to local take-out restaurants. You can get a taste of China’s long history through the cuisine of each region, whose?leaping Buddhas, lion heads and lychee pork?brims brim with
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Beijing on a budget
China’s breakneck rise – in 2014 it became the country with the world’s biggest economy – means that it’s no longer quite the budget destination it used to be. Indeed, the latest comparisons for costs of living put Beijing in the top 20 most expensive cities in the world.
That doesnt mean that you h
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Hong Kongs most unique dining experiences
Hong Kong’s chefs are a versatile bunch who can move with ease between different culinary traditions, bringing together not only old and new, Chinese and Western, but haute and humble, coffee and tea.
Their skills and creativity, and the city’s love of food, have given rise to many one-of-a-kind din
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Dark side of Kowloon: peninsular Hong Kong by night
Most travellers to Hong Kong gravitate towards the glamour of its main island, yet across Victoria Harbour lies the more heavily populated Kowloon. Nicknamed the ‘dark side’, despite being permanently lit up in a fiery neon glow, Kowloon is restlessly trapped between Western idealism and Da Li (the
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Hong Kong hustle: exploring Kowloon with kids
Kowloon might be loud, crazy and disarmingly brash – but the pulsing heart of Hong Kong is full of delights for younger travellers. Just a leisurely stroll through the bright lights of Nathan Road will have them gawking like star struck Canto-pop fans.
But beyond Hong Kongs?glitz and high-rises are
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Secret Hong Kong: singalong parlours and modern monasteries
It’s hard to keep anything in Hong Kong a secret for long. The walls between the world city and the world are thin; its people travel far and frequently, and they talk loudly.
But the city has some wonderful experiences that are not widely known, due to accessibility issues or simply because they ha
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Escaping modern China: unwind in historic Huizhou
It is said that an immortal from the north flying on a goose was so taken by the scenery at Huizhou’s West Lake that she landed and turned into Flying Goose Mountain. This is how Huizhou got its term of endearment, “City of the Goose”.
Located on the eastern periphery of the Pearl River Delta in Gua
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Mao-stalgia: red tourism in Zunyi, China
Gazing over a map of China, Zunyi appears far from the fray. The city is situated in the middle of landlocked Guizhou province, in the remote, mountainous and ethnically diverse southwest. Yet despite its obscurity, almost everyone in China has heard of Zunyi.
This is because in early 1935, the batt
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An art deco journey through Shanghais belle époque
Shanghai is home to one of the richest collections of art deco architecture in the world. A mix of western influences and Chinese deco, the citys signature style saw its heyday in the 1930s and gives insight into the cultural movements of the era.
From the 1920s to the 1940s, Shanghai embraced the m
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A Trip Down the Yhangtze River
It was Sunday afternoon and I was back once again in Chung Do. I was
slipping into another period of disquiet. The fun bit of the trip,
which had been stomping all over Tibet, had been and gone and I was now
faced with the prospect of still being in southern China and having no
idea how to get
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Hong Kong, China – August 1999
Hong Kong is perhaps the only city in the world where shopping surpasses any monument or historical site as the cityÂ’s main tourist attraction. If you donÂ’t go shopping in Hong Kong, itÂ’s like going to Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower. Tourists donÂ’t come here with their
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Urumqi, China – August 1999
Urumqi sits on the northern slope of the Tianshan mountains with the Turpan-Shanshan-Tokson Basin to the east, the Junggar Basin to the north, and the Changji plains to the west, covering an area of 11,440 sq.km. It has 6 districts and a county under its jurisdiction, and a total population of
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The Millennium Trip – Letter #9
Tashi deli everyone,
“Lhasa is all fucked up.”, said Bernard turning his nose up at all the Internet cafes, the PLA (Army) led Chinese tour groups, the Lonely Planet toting Westerners and the cheesecake and pizza selling Tibetan restaurants. I imagined him thinking; “I mean
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