tour China
China Travel Information
A leader's perspective...
As soon as I got out of the airport in Beijing I could feel the one billion heartbeats - there are a lot of people in China! The sensory delight upon arriving in the stinking hot month of June was electric and I immediately fell in love with everything Chinese. From Beijing to Shanghai and everything beyond and between, China is so vast and so different that even after a lifetime spent there, there would still be more to see! The Chinese are a proud people and so they should be. I cannot wait for the 2008 Olympics, I have no doubt it will be the best opening ceremony yet as the colour, vibrancy and acrobatics of a beautiful China come out to entertain the world!
China Travel Information
real life experiences...
Toast to Tiananmen
After a day marvelling at the magnificent Forbidden City, walking on the world's greatest wall or shopping till you drop in the Silk Markets, you need to sit back and reflect on where you actually are – and I have just the place. A rooftop bar in a luxury hotel that overlooks the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square can be seen, lit up, from a distance. It is the perfect place for a beverage on a warm Beijing evening and all within easy walking distance from Tiananmen Square on Dongchang'an Jie.
Dress to impress in Hong Kong
Hong Kong is famous for its market shopping – Stanley Market by day and Temple Street by night. There is a little stall in Temple Street markets that is the perfect place to buy that special something for the person who thought they had everything. Glam up your life with a colourful wig – at home these designer dos would cost five times as much but here you can live it up as a raucous red head, have more fun as a bouffant blonde or my personal favourite, become a violet femme!
Hit the high seas on Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong is known for its shops and restaurants – but did you know that 60% of Hong Kong Island is actually National Park? Beyond the city skyline lies an adventure hunters haven. A short drive takes you to small villages and secluded bays – the perfect place to launch a sea kayak and spend the day paddling between islands, stopping for lunch at local waterfront restaurants where the catch of the day is cooked before your eyes.
Best Beijing Beergarden
In an alleyway jutting from a four-lane thoroughfare named the New East Road, this special little beer garden stays open until the last Beijinger stumbles out. By then he's probably had a few draughts, a bottle or three of the little green wonder known as erguotou, and eaten kebabs fit for a king. This is happy hour, Chinese style.
Dining here on those hot summer nights is a quintessential Beijing experience. The alleyway, known as a hutong in Chinese, is little more than a concrete tarmac set out with plastic patio furniture of the cheapest variety. Yet this atmosphere only heightens the already delicious taste of chuar, succulent sticks of lamb or chicken barbecued and marinated in a savoury spicy sauce.
It is my favourite 'restaurant' in Beijing, is like no other place I've ever eaten at, and the food is amazing.
'The' Bar
A mix of rock, soul and dance always goes down well at this bar in Yangshuo. Run by a former leader, it is off West Street and away from the crowds...
The Tang Song
One day I'd like to remix the 'Thong Song' by Sisqo in honour of my favourite Intrepid guide in the whole wide world, an honour that belongs to the one and only Farmer Tang of Yangshuo.
With a disposition as sweet as sugar and a smile that shines more brightly than all the neon in Shanghai, your can't help but feel for the guy when he tells the saccharine story of how he met his beautiful wife, who apparently doesn't mind that she's taller than he is! Before I'd even met the short and stout man, I'd heard legendary stories of his 10-foot-tall heart from dozens of other China tour leaders. And after meeting him, I can safely say there is no other, guide or otherwise, quite like our beloved Farmer Tang.
So sing the Tang song with me: "Tang ta-ta-ta-Tang!"
Xi'an's Sunrise Secrets
Tai chi started centuries ago as a martial art, but now the slow and precise movements of this exercise is believed to promote inner health and have meditative qualities. If you wake early and walk to any park in China at sunrise you'll quickly discover you're not the only one to be up at first light. Xi'an is a favourite city to wander along the ancient walls and join a welcoming local tai chi troupe. Passing by the fan dancers with their flashes of red in time with the beat, then being distracted by a quick ballroom Fox Trot troupe, you eventually reach the tai chi sanctuary, a calm corner of the park where fluid synchronized movements mirror life and the focus is on exercising the mind, body and spirit. With your 'chi' revived and spirits soaring you're then ready to take in the more famous highlights of fascinating Xi'an
Mount Emei, my second home
For those of Chinese descent like myself, home means a time for family and for gigantic meals! And in that special place in my heart, a place saved for people I call my family on the road, the amazingly warm Betty and Harry (also known as Mrs Tan and Mr Liu) will always be there.
Affectionately named the 'Hard Wok Cafe,' their home is a perfect little open-air restaurant and wooden house built amongst lush tropical rainforest on China's sacred Emei Mountain. For two years, I made over half a dozen visits to this mountain and to their home, and I came to understand the wealth of my cultural heritage - something I craved, having grown up in Canada. Over bottomless bottles of beer and home-cooked spicy Sichuan sustenance, they treated me like their very own son.
For the love of naan
When you've been in Asia long enough, you begin to really miss freshly baked slices of good, savoury bread, as the hyper-sweetened Asian equivalents just don't make the cut. So it wasn't until I went to western China on a Silk Road journey that I finally found bread heaven.
In Uighur culture, bread is truly sacred. As in the rest of Central Asian, bakers fire up their tandoor-style ovens early in the morning and begin pumping out naan bread. It comes in several varieties, with or without a brush of oil, perhaps a dressing of sesame seeds or a pinch of garlic - bolder bakers would add an undertone of onion. On long travel days, I wander the streets searching for a friendly Uighur baker and the fresh breads have sustained many an Intrepid traveller on our desert-crossing journeys.
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