The Red Yao people have lived a unique lifestyle in the mountains near Guilin, China for thousands of years. They wear distinctive colorful clothing, but are most known for the long hair of the women. On our way to the Longshen Rice Terraces we stopped and visited a village and saw a show focusing on […]
Longsheng Rice Terraces
We ended our 48 days in China with our most touristy few days of our whole trip based out of Guilin. Situated on the Li River in Southern China. The metropolitan area is home to about 5 million people. It is a very popular tourist destination and is known for its distinctive geography; the limestone […]
A Week in Anren Ancient Town – Chengdu, China
Our stay for a week in Anren Town, Chengdu was a pleasant surprise and very interesting. Our 48 day trip through China was fairly busy. Our master retirement plan is to travel the world slowly, spending months in each area or city. However, in China we spent only a week in most cities, so there […]
A Day in Rural China
A day in rural Chengdu was one of the highlights of our 48 days in China. Don’t get me wrong, we loved visiting all the well-known, traditional tourist sites: Great Wall and Tiananmen Square in Beijing, The Bund in Shanghai, the Terracotta Army in Xian, etc. However, whenever we travel, we like to see how real […]
CSI Chengdu, China – The Case of Carey’s Missing Backpack
A big shout out and thank-you to the Chengdu, China police department and the staff of the Holiday Inn Express Chengdu Gulou. I narrowly escaped a pretty disastrous situation when we checked in last Friday night. We arrived in Chengdu after a seven hour train trip and took a taxi from the train station to […]
Climbing Mt Hua
While we were in Xian, China, we took a day trip, (well, actually a day and a half trip but more on that later) to Mt Hua. The mountain has been called, “the most precipitous mountain under heaven” due to its steep terrain. It is incredibly beautiful and has many Taoist temples, niches and carvings […]
Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance in Hong Kong
In the 1880s the small village of Tai Hang, in what is now Hong Kong, had a run of bad luck. First a typhoon hit, followed by a plague, and if that wasn’t enough, a few days later a python came and ate the livestock. A local soothsayer determined that the only way to stop […]
Bosphorus Cymbals – I Believe
Visiting the Bosphorus Cymbal factory was one the coolest things I have ever done. The slogan of Bosphorus Cymbals is “Play One & Believe”. I don’t play drums, but I even I believe in Bosphorus cymbals! The trip to the cymbal factory was almost accidental. A few days before we left the USA, we were […]
Our Apartment in Istanbul
I thought I would write about where we are staying in Istanbul and talk about some of the interesting things, well interesting to me, that we have noticed so far. We have rented a two bedroom apartment for a week. There are a number of reasons we went this route versus a hotel room. It […]
Canadian Jihadist or Hipster? Homeland Security Wants to Know
Our son, Parker, made it to Istanbul to meet us on vacation. He had quite a trip, for a variety of reasons. We live in Nashville, TN and Parker lives in Dawson Creek, BC. We don’t get to see him that often, so a few years ago we decided to spend Christmas together someplace in […]