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China, Photo Blogs

Huangshan: Yellow Mountain

Huangshan: Yellow Mountain I highly recommend visiting Huangshan if you’re on a trip in China, both because the mountains themselves are beautiful but also because it can be a great place to interact with Chinese on an equal tourist footing. There are plenty of ancient villages in the area nearby […]

China, Travel Words

Huashan

Just east of Xi’An is China’s “Magnificant Mountain.”  Though not spoken of with the same level of excitement and beauty of Huangshan (in Anhui Province), Huashan mountain is quite pretty.  Greg and I took the cable car up early in the day, spent all day hiking between the 5 major […]

China, Travel Words

Xishuangbanna

XiShuangBanNa After a few months stuck in Shenzhen without a vacation, my Spring Festival/ Chinese New Year vacation found me straight back in Yunnan Province.  Tropical rain-forest bordering Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam.  Home to the upper stretches of the Mekong River (before it becomes the Mekong River.  澜沧江。)  One of the […]

China, Photo Blogs

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge Resting the horses. All through the hike, these guys follow you and ask if you’d like to rent a horse for the rest of the trip. The ringing of the horses’ bells soon becomes part of the background of the walk.     —- Want to visit […]

China, Travel Words

Fujian and Xiamen

After about a month of teaching in Shenzhen came my first vacation: National Day.  Myself and a group of 7 other teachers from CTLC had trouble finding tickets to anywhere we were super excited about going, so instead we headed to where we COULD find tickets: Xiamen.  Fujian province is […]

China, Photo Blogs

Guangdong Province

If Shenzhen was homebase, the rest of Guangdong province was the easiest way to get out of town for a few days.  I didn’t take nearly as many of these trips as I could (should) have, but had a good experience with all the ones I managed.