Adventuriety
Something that I notice right away as I look through our pictures from Shanghai to refresh my memory and get ready to blog my heart out…our pictures are not stellar. Shanghai was days 16-19, our last three days in China, and we were tired. China had been nonstop tourist-ing every day and after our first four nights in Beijing we were staying two nights in...
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Adventuriety
I didn’t know a whole lot about China when I was planning our trip. Heck, I didn’t even want to go to China so I’m not sure how it turned out that I was in charge of planning, but I did know that China had Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, the landscape that inspired The Hallelujah Mountains in Avatar. If I was going to China, that sounded...
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Adventuriety
Our journey to Shangri-La began in Hutiaoxia or Tiger Leaping Gorge Town, where we pulled over in a busy parking area, hugged Denise good-bye and met Sarah amid cars honking and trying to back out of spaces and the couple that ran across the street to ask us about bus schedules and hiking…in Spanish. Scott and the kids were able to not only have a conversation, but...
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Adventuriety
This year has taught me that when we disembark on the tarmac it is usually a sign of impending good adventure. This was true in Tanzania, the Galapagos and now Lijiang in China’s Yunnan province. Yunnan is located in southwest China in the eastern part of the Himalayas, sharing a border with Burma, Laos, and Vietnam in the south and Tibet in the northwest. The...
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Adventuriety
We arrived in Xi’an on our seventh day in China. Even if you have no interest in China you’ve probably heard of Xi’an. No? What about the Terra Cotta Warriors? I thought so. Even my kids knew about the Terra Cotta Warriors and listed them as a reason for visiting China. Obviously, Xi’an is very popular on the Chinese tourist circuit because of the Terra Cotta...
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Adventuriety
Two and a half hours out of Beijing on a bullet train and there is still no sky visible. It looks like June gloom in Central California but it is smog, laying on the ground. Scott points outside and says to the kids, “See the pollution?” Grant replies, “I thought it was fog…are you sure?” It took us three and half hours to finally...
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Adventuriety
For me, being in China was like being on another planet, but a vaguely familiar planet. China is a very complicated place; a lot like an episode of Star Trek Voyager where past, present and future are all tangled together in some sort of Delta Quadrant wormhole. For those of you who are not Trekkies, suffice it to say that Beijing was our first taste...
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Adventuriety
China was a big deal for a lot of reasons. It was our 6th continent, our 18th country and our last destination for the year and above all, it was China and the thought of China intimidated me. Of all of the countries we have visited in the past year, China seemed the most foreign to me with its language, history, size, government and current...
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Adventuriety
I’m just going to start by saying that this blog drove me crazy and took forever to write and rewrite and rewrite. We chose Kyoto for five days because the overwhelming advice from both friends and guidebooks was to spend our time in Kyoto! There seems to be a consensus that Kyoto is the place to visit and when Japan is the topic, the questions range from, “Have...
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Adventuriety / Inspirietry
After the sensory overload of Tokyo, we were all looking forward to a little nature and a slower pace. The charming town of Nikko was recommended both by friends and guidebooks. It is located a little more than two hours north of Tokyo and offers both the UNESCO World Heritage that includes 103 buildings or structures belonging to two Shinto shrines and one Buddhist temple...
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