Beijing is very different to all other cities we have visited throughout Asia, and it is of course our final stop. A calm place even if it is the capital of China, with fewer cars and public transport, as well as people. The air pollution here is terrible, the smog is so thick that we haven't seen a single cloud, blue sky, stars or the sun while here. We are staying at Ming Courtyard Youth Hostel, which we found down one of Beijings many traditional hudongs. The ...

Ash and Nath arrived in Xi'an exhausted after a crazy long sleeper train lasting 26 hours, I on the other hand had managed to sleep at least 20 of those hours and was pretty well rested! We found our hostel Han Tang Inn down a little alleyway and instantly wanted to stay there longer than 1 night; friendly staff, great atmosphere and amazingly clean bathroom and dorm ! Ashamed to say that we ate McDonald's on arriving as nothing else was open past midnight! It w...

Of all the notable mountains in China, and a UNESCO world heritage site; Mount Huangshan is the most famous and today we climb it! We really must be crazy- we have already been called this by a number of Chinese in our hostel, who are of course sensible and taking the cable cars up all the way! We were dropped at the base by a lovely local named Simon Cheng who had helped us find our hostel the day before. He had planned an extensive route for us up and down the...

Shanghai is a hugeeee city! We arrived very tired and hot after a 24 hour sleeper train from Hong Kong. After a feast of a meal we got an early night in preparation for meeting Nathan the next morning. Ash and I walked through The Bund passing through the amazing Pudong Skyline, we decided to take the alternative route to Nathan's hostel which was across the Yangtze River, through The Bunds viewing tunnel which was an usual experience! It was amazing to see a ...

We have arrived in Hong Kong, and we absolutely love it! Our 8 hour bus ride from Yangshuo to Shenzhen was pretty okay and we had managed to grab a taxi from here on to the subway to Hong Kong with some fellow westerners we had met on the bus. Our hostel was nice ish and we were sharing with just one other traveller - a girl from Brazil. Everywhere you look here you are surrounded by huge skyscrapers with business men and women hurrying around you everywhere. We...