Last day in Shanghai. Our day started out with a delicious breakfast on the street of various kinds of dumplings as we explored the streets, lanes, and parks of the French Concession area around where we are staying. This is an old area and has lots of parks and green space and is a very desireable part of the city to live in. The parks are well used and we saw tai chi, ballroom dancing, opera singing, and a variety of games all going on in one of the larger one...

More exploring today and gettting to know the city. It was fun to start our day in this residentail area by eating street food with the locals. I had the best breakfast wrap ever, all made on the street in a propane heated wok. I did, however, have to put aside my Canadian manners and fight for my place in line. One difference here is that we washed down breakfast with a Starbucks coffee - the first real coffee we have had in seven weeks! While exploring the city...

Shanghai - what a contrast to the last places we have been! Much of this city has been constructed in the last 10 - 20 years and there is some stunning architecture. But they have also maintained some of the old buildings in a vibrant market area and a beautiful traditional garden called Yuyuan Garden which dates from the 1500's. We are staying in a private condo (which we found on the internet). It was quite an adventure to find it last night, as by the time w...

We awoke this morning to a clear day of -15 degrees C and no heat in our room! Fortunately, we were well bundled up in comforters and were warm during the night - but it sure was hard to get out of bed! We had a good view of Everest from Tigri, but it was quite far away and overshadowed by the closer mountains which were spectacular in their own right. From Tingri we drove to the border town of Zangmu over a pass through the Himalayas which are some of the most ...

What a day this was! After having perfect weather for the entire time we have been in Tibet, we woke up this morning to clouds. As we started up towards the Everest Base Camp, it started to snow. We had to climb 1000m (3030ft) on a road which was one switchback after another. The snow kept coming and getting thicker and thicker. Our.guides decided that we would go as far as the Rongbuk monastery, have lunch and go back down because of the weather, instead of stay...