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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Travel Planning, Blogging, and Life Post-China

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I love planning. I love lists, researching and organising, and I love the implementing of said plan. However, with travelling, I’ve come to realise that planning only gets you so far, and then you just have to go with the flow. Mitch and I planned to go to Vietnam together two years ago, but unexpected eye surgery got in the way of that. When we travel, we have vague plans, and that’s what I like. We finish our teaching jobs here in China at the end of June. Naturally, we have begun to talk about our plan for afterwards. We’ll …

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Liebster Award: Bristolian Backpacker

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It’s been about 3 months since I made a domain name for my Bristolian Backpacker blog. So I am excited to say that I have been nominated for a Liebster Award by What Way Today – thanks guys! How does it work? Well, the Liebster award is for newer or less high profile blogs to gain some recognition for their hard work and awesome content. Once you’ve accpeted the award, you then answer 11 questions from the blog who nominated you. Find 11 more people to give the award to, and give them 11 questions. Awesome right? So here are …

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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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