Category: China

A Whirlwind Weekend Seeing The Terracotta Warriors

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With just over a month left in China, Mitch and I are pushed for time to visit places. While we take opportunities during the Chinese National Holidays, these weekends are ridiculously busy at the hot-spot tourist places (The Yellow Mountain on New Year’s Day = Very bad idea!). With this is mind, we decided to pick a random weekend to visit the famous Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an. A domestic flight from Hangzhou airport got us there in about two hours. We’ve avidly been trying to avoid air travel while in China (up until Xi’an we’d only taken two domestic flights in …

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Visiting Guangzhou: What to see and do

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This year, there were many pictures on the internet of Guangzhou during Chinese New Year. As a major transport hub for China, the city was overrun with people trying to get home as a number of trains and planes were delayed due to snow and general bad weather. Luckily, we arrived in Guangzhou after spending Chinese New Year in Hong Kong. The city was much quieter and, thankfully, we had no transport issues. So, what did we do in Guangzhou? The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart Stepping into this courtyard is like stepping into a European city. Apart from all the …

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Visiting Nanjing: The Nanjing Massacre Memorial

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Most guide books and blogs won’t put Nanjing as a highlight to visit during a trip to China. It doesn’t have any impressive architecture such as Shanghai, or stunning scenery such as the Li river. However, Nanjing is definitely worth a visit if you are near. There is some beautiful natural landscape and lots to see in and around the Zijin (purple-gold) mountain. But the place you must visit in Nanjing is the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre. Here you will learn about the history of the city, the Rape of Nanjing as it is often referred to. On August …

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The challenges and joys of teaching drama in China

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When applying for teaching jobs in China, the most relevant experience I had was as a youth theatre drama teacher. Due to this background, the teaching agency I ended up working for in China placed me at an arts school, and the job offer I was given was English and drama. Fine by me. I love drama and think it can be used in many ways to teach English. When I arrived at the school, I was told that I would teach drama club every Friday for an hour. Great. However, it wasn’t until I started that I found out …

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A day in Suzhou

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Mitch and I have realised that this semester at school in China is going to fly by. As such, we need to make the most out of being here. It’s safe to say we’ve explored Hangzhou a lot (there is still more to see as it’s a big city), but we’ve enjoyed all the main attractions and delights the city has to offer. For our weekend adventures, we now turn to those places we can reach easily on the train or bus, and spend a day and a half or so there on a weekend. Suzhou is one of those …

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Hong Kong Highlights

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Hong Kong is a busy, dizzying city. We stayed in Kowloon, which was both crazy and brilliant. Coming from mainland China, one of the first differences we noticed is how expensive the city is. You realise this when you are forced to pay £20 for the smallest room possible in a hostel (and if you’re lucky you’ll get a window!). Aside from that, alcohol is expensive in bars and you may need to wander a bit to find some cheap eats. Getting around is fairly cheap if you get yourself an Octopus card, and a lot of the things to see …

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