For sure, the highlight of visiting Xi’an is seeing the Terracotta Warriors. But you have to be a warrior yourself to see them. As the photo above suggests, a few other people were visiting Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum, where this army was buried to protect the emperor and allow him to fight his enemies in the…
On Tuesday we flew from Guilin to Chengdu, where we are spending three nights. Yesterday was our last full day here. And I’m back to a situation where I cannot upload photos in bulk because I can’t get my VPN to work with the hotel WiFi, so I won’t be able to share the hundreds…
After three days in Shanghai and three days in Guilin, I’ve finally managed to get my photos uploaded, organized, and captioned! Today is our last day in Guilin, so I’m going to give you a very quick rundown of what I’ve been seeing from Shanghai to Guilin. With luck, I’ll be able to share more…
This morning we leave Shanghai for our next destination, so before that happens, I want to share about my experiences the last two days. We had a Shanghai day followed by a day trip to Suzhou, about two hours’ drive. I’m sorry I can’t share more photos, I’m hoping the next hotel will work with…
I arrived in Shanghai yesterday along with seven others who were on the pre-trip in Taipei with me. Our trip leader, Jenny met us at the airport. (Her real name is Zhang Zhuo. Zhang is her family name and Zhuo is her given name, but we just call her Jenny because it is much easier.)…
Because of Typhoon Champi, three days in Taipei had to be compressed into one. Of course, what that really means is a lot of the itinerary didn’t happen at all, and some things had to be rushed. But Alexis, our trip leader, managed to squeeze a lot into our day. And now I’m going to squeeze…
I got to Taipei on Wednesday afternoon, and I had a free day yesterday. Today is the day my tour of Taipei was supposed to begin. But Typhoon Champi had other plans for my group. I am hunkered down in my hotel as most all of Taiwan has canceled school and work today.
I have about 90 minutes to write this before I head to the airport for the next part of my adventure, so this will be a brief overview of the last three days in Hiroshima. We arrived early on Sunday afternoon, so we got going pretty much right away. Then Monday was a free day,…
There are seventeen UNESCO World Heritage properties in Kyoto. Okay, so they are not listed individually. They are grouped together under a single listing: Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. Sometimes it felt like the whole world was here to see them. I didn’t see them all. Not by a long shot. Our group visited just…
We left Tokyo on Tuesday and traveled to Toba, with a stop in Ise. Both cities lie inside Ise-Shima National Park, which encompasses a stretch of coastline with numerous inlets as well as a densely forested interior. We had the chance to experience the maritime heritage of the region as well as one of Japan’s…
After spending four nights in Tokyo, we have moved on to Toba, where we are staying two nights in a lovely Ryokan overlooking Ise Bay. But I’m not going to try to catch up on my blogging just yet. This post will be about Tokyo and our day trip to see Mt. Fuji.
This is just a quick post to touch base, since I’ve been in Tokyo for two full days and haven’t written anything yet. But I want to share some general impressions. I’ll write more detail later.
