We've never been big city people, so it came as no surprise to us that the first half of our time in China was a little tiring. We were really looking forward to our time in the Guangxi province, where we hoped to find more of a countryside feel. Guilin is much smaller than Beijing but is still a sizeable city, so we didn't waste any time getting out to Yangshuo. While Yangshuo is also a fairly big town, it's perfectly situated to escape it all, so we rented s...

Now that we've moved on to Thailand, we thought we should catch up on our China blogs, starting with our unplanned detour to Chengdu. First off, the Panda Breeding Reserve in Chengdu puts the Beijing Zoo to shame (Stefanie nearly cried seeing some of the disgusting conditions at that zoo). The Breeding Reserve was like an entire zoo with every exhibit dedicated to pandas. I have never seen so many giant pandas, red pandas, and panda babies in one place before....

During our time in Beijing and Xi'an (pronounced "she-ahn"), we had lots of opportunities to explore China's history. The two most impressive sites also happen to be two of the most well-known: the Great Wall and the Terracotta Army. Rather than visiting the most popular sections of the great wall, where the wall is usually obscured by ridiculous numbers of people and annoying vendors, we chose to do a tour our hostel called "Ancient Wall to Secret Wall." It c...

We've begun the next exciting leg of our journey: China! As the last days passed by in New Zealand, we started getting anxious about what might lay ahead for us in Asia. Needless to say, the language barrier felt pretty daunting. However, I'm happy to report that so far it hasn't been so bad! In fact, for the most part, we're loving China! Here's a little run down on the good, the bad, and the tasty. The Good Navigating the airports in Guangzhou and Bei...