Guide to UNESCO World Heritage Sites
If you have been following this blog for a while, you would know that one of the things I dislike more than anything (when it comes to travel) is over-inflated hype. I like an honest assessment more than anything, which is the reason why I started the idea of ranking world heritage sites in the first place. The Terracotta Army definitely lives up to the hype.
Nowadays, Macao is mostly known for being the gambling capital of the world in terms of money spent every year. What a lot of people, including myself, didn’t know, is that the city was (until 1999) owned by the Portuguese, and much like Hong Kong was controlled directly by a foreign power (non-Chinese) for hundreds of years. Macao was actually the first foothold a foreign power laid in China and I was interested on checking it out. Read more
What is the longest delay you have ever had? 4 hours? 8 hours? How about three full days without money, knowledge of where you are, means of communicating with the outside world, and no local around who can understand you? In retrospect, I took one of my first travel crises quite well for a newbie traveler!
Let me paint the picture for you. The events depicted in my post “Getting Scammed in Xian” had a lot more going on than I led on so let me continue the story. After finally seeing the Terracotta Army, I went on with my trip to Lijiang and then Chengdu. When vacation time was over, I had to return to Korea, as I had just started my first year teaching English in the tiny town of Daejeon. There was one little thing that stood in the way though, a 5 hour layover in Beijing, one of the worse worst airports in the world. (Edit of typo: courtesy of Grammar Nazi Dave Yuhas) Read more
Today, we feature a guest post from fellow travel blogger Agness Walewinder. She takes us to Zhangjiajie, known to most as the world of Pandora from the movie Avatar. Pandora is a real place that you can visit now, and Agness will convince you why you should put it on the top of your China bucket list. Take it away Agness!
I would probably not surprise anyone if I told you that China is one of the most diverse and stunning countries in the world in terms of scenery and landscape. Without a doubt, the ‘Land of Dragons’ has been favored by Mother Nature and Zhangjiajie, a city located in northern part of Hunan Province, proves it. Read more
Like the old saying goes, “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” I always thought that was a dumb saying as poison or disease might not kill me, but it definitely doesn’t make me stronger. However, I think what the saying is trying to teach is that the experience we gain from a conquered crisis will indeed make us mentally stronger in future situations. That is of course, if it doesn’t kill you! Alas, just like Beijing a few months later, I was previously scammed in Xi’an, China.
Xi’an, China is a wonderful historical city, famous for its 12-meter-tall city walls that surround the town till this very day. While there are lots of cool things to see here, most people come with one main site on their mind, the Mausoleum of the first Qin Emperor, also known as the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. With this, however, comes a horde of scammers Read more