On the evening of Friday, 5th June, we caught a Hainan Airlines flight from Beijing to Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. It was a very quick flight - just over an hour and the flight was very comfortable. The hotel had arranged for us to be driven to Pingyao ( yet another ancient town). Photos below, mostly taken by the Canadian :)

Hotel, Wall Walk and ( Read more... )

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We're going to go to 平遥 Píngyáo this Friday and stay there for the weekend.


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Index to Photos

For the last 3 weeks, we've been on the road, largely following the draft itinerary I prepared last month. The Canadian's parents have returned to Canada and I think they had a great time. We have thousands and upon thousands of photos, but I've sifted through and picked out some of my more favourite ones :) Index to the photos ( Read more... )

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The last village we visited was Shuhe Village, also known as "Shaowu" in the Naxi language. It means "the village at the foot of the high hill". The ancient town of Shuhe is located 4 kilometres to the northwest of the ancient city of Lijiang. Shuhe is also one of the first settlements for the ancestors of the Naxi Minority and important in the ( Read more... )

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We arrived at Lijiang's extremely tiny airport (only 5 gates) and were picked up by a driver who took us to the ancient city of Lijiang. ( Read more... )

Yesterday, Singapore Girl II, DC Gal, British Chap, French Gal, Dutch Guy, The Canadian and I hopped into a rented minibus to go to 爨底下村 Cuandiaxia Village, 90 km outside of Beijing.

爨底下村 Cuandiaxia Village was first built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and apparently preserves about 70 courtyard houses built with stones and wood. It's a ( Read more... )