[Travel]
[travel] China itinerary
For those playing along with the home game version of “Where’s Jay”, here’s the China itinerary. Blogging where access and bandwidth permit, copious photos to be forthcoming for certain.
April 7
Leave Portland, fly to Beijing via Vancouver and Tokyo
April 8 – April 10
Beijing
April 11
Overnight Train to Xi’an
April 12 – 13
Xi’an
April 14 – 15
Chengdu
April 16 – 17
Nanchang
April 18
Beijing
April 19
Leave Beijing, fly to Portland via Tokyo and Vancouver
April 19
Back in Portland
Posted: 8:19 pm Fri April 03 2009 |
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You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
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Liz Argall
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:18 pmWow, looks like a hectic schedule.
I’m sure you’re well taken care of, but here are my humble travel tips.
When in Xian make sure you get down into the muslim area near the great mosque and try some fantastic deserts and hot pots. The hotpot places look extremely dodgy, with bits of meat on skewers in the open etc, but it is delicious. I miss the charred meat of Xian, such a wonderful confluence of spices. When in Schetzuan province remember no chillis means medium heat at least).
Beijing is overpriced but lovely (beware of cute school girls offering to take you to an art exhibition or wanting you to buy them tea).
Do not drink TsingTao Beer, it’s the stuff they get out of the country. Every province, often every city have their own beer, I miss China’s beer. It’s light, delicious, generally comes in huge bottles and is about the same price as bottled water or fruitjuice.
GO TO PUBLIC PARKS. There serendipity can find you many wonderful things. In China people don’t really go to each other’s homes, they go to restaurants or public parks. We’ve done TaiChi style exercises (you just join in), ribbon twirling and random gong/dancing parades, watched kite flying and listened to really odd kareoke. Xian’s People’s park is particularly bustling.
Also if you need to go to the toilet, pay a few yuan to go into a park with a gate and you will have a much better experience than going to a public toilet (or the hideous pay to use toilets in train stations etc).
Eat street food. The street food is great. The food that made me feel most ill and miserable was overpriced food from hotels. Don’t eat salad.
Have a fantastic time!
Jay
April 4th, 2009 at 5:54 amI have passed this on tomy fellow travellers.
Mike Brotherton
April 4th, 2009 at 2:44 pmI’m in Tianjin now (about 90 minutes drive from Beijing). Still want to do dinner on the 18th? Did you already let me know when and where? I think maybe, but my head is spinning from travel and jet lag. I may travel somewhere Sunday as well for a few days, and will likely stay in Beijing overnight, too.
Jay
April 5th, 2009 at 5:20 amI’d like to do it on the 18th, but I’m trying to confirm when we’re back from Jiangxi that day. How’s next week as a fallback?
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April 7th, 2009 at 4:44 am[...] BC and Tokyo to Beijing. We’ll meet up with my Mom and Dad there. Itinerary here: [ jlake.com | ]. There will be an open dinner in Beijing the night of the 18th, if any of you will happen to [...]