Beijing seems very different to the many other cities that we have visited in China. Just driving to our hotel we had the impression of large amounts of space, big boulevards and a nice mix of old and new architecture. Tiananmen Square is really the heart of Beijing, being home to a number of key sites important to both past and present China. Whilst it claimed world notoriety with the student demonstrations in 1989 and the subsequent hardhanded put down by ...

On the recommendation of a number of people we have met on this leg of our trip, we have decided to take a short detour from our original route and visit Shanghai. Billed as the home-grown communist alternative to the financial might of Hong Kong, it is a thriving metropolis and the seat of many financial and commercial businesses in China. As we expected there is a huge amount of construction and renovation work going on to make the city the home of m...

Nanjing seemes to have a different air about it compared with the other Chinese places we have visited. Still lots of construction and modern high rise buildings but they have also done a lot to retain some of the the beautiful wide open spaces and lush green park land that gives a feeling of tranquility to the former capital city of China. Nanjing has played an important role in China's history; twice being the country's capital, once under the Ming dynasty...

From Chengdu we travelled to Chongqing, which is the main gateway for people wishing to take a cruise down the Yangtze river. The river winds it way over a few hundred miles all the way to Shanghai, through an area called the Three Gorges, considered one of the most beautiful pieces of scenery in the whole of China. Much of this area will cease to exist in 2009 when the worlds largest dam, on the Yangtze river at Yichang, comes into full operation. With the...

This postcard is very late getting posted because, to be frank, email facilities, internet and computers generally in China are CRAP!!!! We can't figure out if they are incredibly behind the times with technology, despite having some of the worlds biggest tech companies, or if the restrictions placed on services by the government are causing all the problems. Either way Carol has nearly had to physically stop Chris from throwing computers through windows in the l...