Just had the May Day holidays which turned into a bit of a fiasco for me. Believing I had to teach I did not plan any travels but of course classes were cancelled but they forgot to tell the foreign teachers!!! All in all we were fairly annoyed as a few of us would have used the time to see more of the country but ended up stuck in Nanjing......a few unhappy campers here Anyway as the weather is warming up I am getting out and about a bit more within the city. ...

Everywhere you go in China you see lovely little tea sets of all shapes and sizes which I have admired since I arrived. Thought it was time I visited the "home" of porcelain making and see where it all started. The very small city of Jingdezhen, with a population of 1.6 million, has been known as the "porcelain city" since the Song dynasty. It has a long history of over 1700 years of porcelain making so I figure they must have got it right by now!! As you enter ...

After descending the mountain itself I had a day to fill in before my return to Nanjing on the midnight train so it was time to explore some of the city. Huangshan city, called Huizhou in ancient times (Song Dynasty 960-1279), lies at the southernmost end of Anhui Province with a population of 1.5 million people. For most tourists, Huangshan City is just a transit point and gateway barely noticed on the way to the mystical cloud shrouded peaks of Huangshan Mounta...

Well I know it is spring as the blossoms are budding, the weather is warming up (in most places) and the trees are starting to get their leaves.....however someone forgot to tell the weatherman this in Huangshan!!! Off I headed thinking that it would be an ideal time to see the true beauty that everyone talks about. Huangshan - one of the five great mountains of China- was about to be conquered. Started off in Tangkou, a tiny village at the base of the mountain ...

Well it was time to escape the pollution, incessant noise and the maddening crowds that make up Nanjing...also it is the time of qing ming (tomb sweeping) festival so I manage to get a few consecutive days off. Decided to head to nearby Anhui Province and see some of the sights. Got the overnight soft sleeper train to Huangshan and then a car to Hongcun. Have to say its my first time on a sleeper train and if what I had was a soft sleeper then I don't want to se...